Urban Transport Group calls for light rail expansion to aid city regions’ recovery - CILT(UK)
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Urban Transport Group calls for light rail expansion to aid city regions’ recovery

26 October 2021/Categories: CILT, Industry News, Transport Planning


Britain’s light rail systems are instrumental in supporting economic growth, promoting social inclusion and achieving environmental gains in the urban areas that they serve, according to the Urban Transport Group. 

 

Protecting light rail services and maintaining the urban connectivity they provide – with further Government support if necessary – is key to ensuring towns and cities can recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

There are also opportunities to extend existing networks and to introduce new systems in towns and cities that currently do not benefit from light rail but, to realise such schemes, a stable policy and funding environment is required. 

 

These are the key findings of a new report - Leading light: What light rail can do for city regions – produced by consultants Steer Group, for the Urban Transport Group. 

 

The report stresses the key role light rail networks have played in keeping cities moving throughout the pandemic: allowing key workers and others unable to work from home to commute to their jobs; providing connections to healthcare facilities and vaccination hubs; and - as the economy has reopened - enabling people to go shopping and return to offices.

 

But it also highlights the uncertainty around how long patronage on light rail (and other urban transport modes more generally) will take to recover as we emerge from the pandemic, especially as Government’s financial support for light rail is due to come to an end in April 2022. 

 

The report states: “Light rail has a continuing role shaping the future of our towns and cities. It will help support post-pandemic economic recovery and shape the recovery from COVID so that urban economies follow a more inclusive and more sustainable path.”

 

Stephen Edwards, Executive Director at South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, who leads on light rail for the Urban Transport Group, said: “Light rail systems play a bigger role in the life of British urban areas now than they have for well over fifty years. 

 

“This report sets out in detail, and with numerous case studies, why and how light rail has been such a success story for the places it serves. 

 

“It also supports our wider case to the Comprehensive Spending Review for both continued funding support for our light rail networks, whilst patronage is constrained due to COVID, and, in the longer term, for a more stable and consistent approach to extending the benefits of light rail to more places and passengers.”

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