Future Developments
Since 2000 the city council has included a light rail system in its Local Transport Plan, but has so far been unable to fund the project. The city was offered European Union funding for the system, but the Department for Transport did not provide the required additional funding.
As well as improvements to public transport, the 2005 Greater Bristol Strategic Transport Study, commissioned by the regional government office, recommended road building to tackle congestion. These include re-routing and extended the South Bristol Ring Road. The road is currently partially single carriageway and indirect, terminating at the A38 in a built-up area. When the current sections of the road were built it was intended that the road would continue as dual carriageway to a section of the A38 further south, and development prevented on the intended route. The proposals follow this route west from Hengrove Park roundabout to the A38 at Castle Farm (phase 1), and from there to the A370 near Long Ashton Park and Ride (phase 2). There are additional recommendations (phase 3) for a new Whitchurch bypass from Hengrove Park roundabout, along the base of Dundry Hill, around Stockwood and joining the existing A4174 at Hicks Gate roundabout on the A4. Phase one and two of the ring road are the only major road building schemes adopted by the Joint Local Transport Plan, which claimed they would reduce delays across the Greater Bristol area by 6%, and lead to a 9% increase in public transport use. Bristol City Council has since endorsed all three phases, hoping to begin construction of the first two phases in 2010 and 2011, and the third phase potentially some time after 2016.
There are several other major road developments proposed by the Strategic Transport Study. Emersons Green, a rapidly expanding business and industrial suburb with a £300 million "science park" currently in development, could be connected to the M4, with a new junction where the motorway crosses the dismantled Midlands railway (ST689779) and a new road following the route of the railway to the A4174 roundabout (ST675771). When St Philip's Causeway was built by Bristol Development Corporation in the 1980s, connecting the M32 in St Pauls to the A4 at Arno's Vale, it was originally intended to be part of a larger road scheme. A proposed Callington Road Link would extend the road along the route of the dismantled Radstock railway line to the A4174, with a junction on the A4. Bristol Airport has also been attracting increasing levels of transport to roads south of Bristol, and an Airport link has been discussed for several years. Two schemes are suggested in the STS, both entirely new roads. One route connects Junction 20 of the M5 at Clevedon to the west end of the Long Ashton bypass as a new "Nailsea Bypass", coupled with an "Orange Route" link from the Long Ashton bypass, approximately one kilometre from its west end, to the A38 at the B3130 junction. The other route would run from the A38 just south of the airport, north of Wrington and south of Congresbury to the M5 at Weston-super-Mare. The final major project proposal is a second Avonmouth Bridge. This would be a lower level to the M5 bridge, with a swing or lifting mechanism, to the West of the existing bridge, and would relieve the motorway of the local traffic it carries.
Rail services in Bristol currently suffer from overcrowding and there is a proposal to increase rail capacity under the Greater Bristol Metro scheme.
Read more about this topic: Transport In Bristol
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