Only four cities in the UK currently have underground transport systems – but could Cambridge become the fifth?
The university city has been front and centre of the government's plans for growth, with 150,000 new homes earmarked by 2050. When she was Chancellor, Rachel Reeves wanted to connect Cambridge with Oxford in hopes of adding up to £78bn to the UK economy by 2035.
However, Cambridge’s centuries-old streets and buildings, designed long before cars, means that the city faces the possibility of traffic congestion doubling by 2031. A confidential report, that the BBC claims to have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, reveals that its streets already cannot accommodate the number of drivers there at peak times.
New public transport systems, including trams and a light rail network, are being investigated by the Cambridge Growth Company (CGC) and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA). Confidential reports drawn up for the CGC from March this year, obtained by the BBC, stated that if nothing was done, and no significant new transport interventions are introduced, the impacts of planned growth would be severe. It forecasts that traffic levels would increase by more than 30% in the next five years and congestion time would more than double. Therefore, it suggests, there is a convincing case for mass rapid transit (MRT) in Cambridge, where congestion charge plans were dropped a few years ago.
While no decisions have been made yet, one of the reports looks at the potential for MRT tunnelled options, which would mean that Cambridge joins London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Newcastle as the only cities with underground transport systems in the UK.
This is not the first time that this idea has been suggested, as, under former Conservative mayor James Palmer, plans were drawn up for a Cambridge Autonomous Metro (CAM), around 31 miles of new busways and almost four miles of tunnels. But these proposals were dropped due to predicted costs of between £2bn and £4bn after Labour mayor Nik Johnson took control in 2021. The county's current Conservative mayor Paul Bristow pledged to build light rail – a system of urban trams – when elected in 2024.
Proposals for a tunnel running from Cambridge central station, through the city centre and out to the west, have been put forward by independent transport group Cambridge Connect. Its director, Colin Harris, told the BBC that its tunnel would be 2.5 miles long –and could cost £300m, plus £100m for each underground station built. A spokesperson for the CGC told the BBC that they are taking an evidence-led approach to consider what an MRT solution may be for Cambridge.