Is the Cambridge Busway Britain’s Worst Transport Project?
It may not be Britain’s as the Edinburgh Tram will take a lot of beating. But it is certainly England’s, especially if you read this report in the Hunts Post.
Here’s a flavour of the report.
Building the St Ives-Cambridge guided busway is now expected to cost nearly two-thirds more than the target price – an overrun of well over £50million.
Cambridgeshire County Council, which is promoting the scheme, expects construction to have cost £142m.
When the cost of land, the county council’s own costs and those of its engineering consultants Atkins are added, the total cost of the project looks set to reach £170m before the High Court decides who pays the final bills.
When originally proposed in the early 2000s, the scheme was costed at £56m. After a few modifications, a lengthy public inquiry and Government approval, the bill had risen to £116.7m. The Government promised to chip in £92.5m, with the balance coming from developers who would benefit from the project.
As with many of these fiascos, it’ll be the lawyers who make the real money.
The Anonymous Widower 
Thank you for all of your blogs on the guided busway, it’s what brought me to your very interesting blog initially. The interesting thing about the busway I feel is that it would have given the town of Northstowe decent bus links to St. Ives and Cambridge as soon as people started living there, showing that the council learnt from its mistakes with Cambourne. But as Northstowe now will not be built for a long time, the council doesn’t need the busway to be finished. In fact, it doesn’t want subsidised empty buses running on it so it is probably quite happy for the busway to be effectively moth-balled until Northstowe starts to be built. The council can still use it for political purposes by standing up against ‘evil’ BAM Nuttal, but this is probably the cheapest outcome. What do you think?
Comment by Philip Wallbridge | November 15, 2010 |
It’s not a bad idea to mothball it, but personally, I’d like to see the southern section opened, so that when I’ve moved, I can get to the hospital easily from London. Incidentally, the buses to places like duxford and Haverhill should possibly use the busway as a by-pass. I took the bus from Csmbridge to Haverhill and that service needs improvement. It would also help those without jobs in Haverhill, but then Haverhill is not in Cambridgeshire.
It’s a big mess!
Comment by AnonW | November 16, 2010 |