In their desire to get us out of our cars, The South Wales Metrolink – an integrated heavy rail, light rail and bus-based public transport network – is being developed by the Welsh Government in south-east Wales around the hub of Cardiff Central Railway Station.
I don’t know how long this will take to complete, but even if it works like clockwork and you can get off a bus straight onto a train and vice versa, travelling by public transport has a flaw . . .the public!
Governments won’t persuade drivers out of their cars onto buses and trains while many of their fellow passengers are selfishly yapping on their phones or listening to music without ear buds.
A friend and his wife recently decided to travel to Cardiff by bus, using their OAP passes. It started badly when one of the passengers on the bus taking them into the bus station spent the whole journey relating her domestic troubles into her ‘phone . . . very loudly.
Then, sitting on the Cardiff bus, waiting for it to pull out, the driver suddenly turned up the in-bus radio(!) to an ear-splitting level.
Not wanting to endure this throughout the 45-minute journey, they got off the bus (telling the driver why they were doing so) and walked to the local railway station.
The next train to Cardiff had been cancelled, the one after that was delayed by 14 minutes and when it arrived, an on-board announcement explained the delay was due to “Railway police being called to remove brawling passengers!”
This was ten’o’clock in the morning!
When they were ready to return home, they noticed a bus to their town about to leave from a nearby stop, so boarded it, only to have their ears assailed by music from the phone of a young lad sat at the back, accompanied by an adult who made no attempt to suggest he might turn down the volume.
The Welsh Government’s Metro Link scheme will only be successful if journeys are as pleasant and comfortable for passengers as being in their own cars.  Can you see that happening?