Rotheram firms up £1.6bn transport programme for Liverpool City Region

Why will it take until 2028 for the Gliders aka bendy buses to be in operation. West Yorkshire plan to start construction for trams in 2028. Once again Liverpool just lacks the ambition and has hopeless leadership who have held the city back for years.

so zero investment at the pitifully inadequate Sandhills Station for a clear and obvious immediate need to serve the new stadium and 10 streets area . But spending £100 million on a nice to have for future expansion at Baltic Triangle its staggering. As for the rapid transit buses , please the trendy name cannot disguise its a bus . Active travel cycle lanes are a white elephant , i am not anti cyclist but ask yourself this why are they always empty ?

Funding for Sandhills Station was part of the £710m City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement. Money from this settlement deal will cover the £41m overruns on that programme, just as an fyi. So there is some love for Sandhills coming.

December 05, 2025 at 12:06 pm

By Julia Hatmaker

Can we please see some spades in the ground at Baltic Station, and some designs for the other 3 stations they’ve been discussing for years. Can’t believe they are still exploring the use of Merseyrail from Bidston to Wrexham, just got on with it!
The glider buses won’t be rapid transport without dedicated lanes, so why not build a proper tram instead. Meanwhile still no railways in the East of Liverpool just ignored as usual, he’s got unused rail routes but never mentions them, if this was the Tyne Metro they’d be planning extensions now.
Finally zero road traffic deaths or injuries by 2040, shouldn’t that be the goal now, whoever thought of that target must’ve been the last person round the table.

Have I missed something in the list but there doesn’t appear much in terms of game changing transport links in North Liverpool given a development corporation with 17,000 new homes was launched yesterday? Plenty of active travel/cycle lanes that barely anyone uses though. It always seems to be the easy option taken when it comes to big transport issues in the city region. Another wasted opportunity.

Yes Steve and Lord Stewart from the Imagine board need to get the bus into town from Shiel Road, or try walking from Scotland Road into town. All barriers to people getting to jobs. They just seem to set up talking shops and people are making a living out of this. There are that many committees and boards and project groups. Bendy buses? Hmm seen a few of them take out traffic signs and all sorts in Manchester. Recipe for disaster.

Come on, let’s face, it every penny of this should be going on developing a tram system, the first branch of which should run to the airport. The rest of this is window dressing.

Next time the Mayor orders some new trains from Stadler,which might be soon, can they be 6-car units as they can be used on the Southport, Ormskirk, and Chester routes. At the moment they are coupling two 4-car trains which means the guard can’t patrol the full walk-through train, also it’s not a good use of the 4-car units and wastes time coupling them, meanwhile not all stations can take an 8-car train.

£100M for bendy buses is not value for money imo. I lived in Belfast and they are okay but I would expect a bit more ambition from our mayor.

Good news, next steps needs to be expanding Merseyrail so more people in LCR can use the network and have better access to jobs, leisure and shopping. Doubling the size of Merseyrail will grow the economy and encourage further investment.

Liverpool has endured some great passenger transport losses such as the Overhead Railway, 7 miles of Chicago-style raised electric railway,gone. Also the demise of the ferries from a vibrant, commuter service to basically a tourist attraction. However the biggest loss of all was the trams, which covered the whole of the city and beyond,running along all the main arterial roads into bustling neighbourhoods, while others terminated in Bootle, Huyton, Kirkby, and Prescot.

What about Woolton and other areas in the L25 post code.

Why isn’t the Mayor asking for the £2.6b GMCA got? I know it’s population based but it needs to change. Liverpool needs a tram system not a bendy bus and trains on the outer loop.

His own reports tell him active travel is a dead duck, must employ bike enthusiastic staff. No Merseyrail extensions, got the battery trains just need the vision.

@Paul – Woolton
Speaking as a cyclist, I always use cycle lanes where possible. I feel that since most of Liverpool tends to feel car-dominated then being out on a bike feels generally unsafe, which is why I guess you tend to see a fair few cyclists on the pavement. Another possible reason for cycle lanes often looking empty is that they are not subject to congestion, their design is to have cyclists constantly moving through them, which is why it might seem like they’re empty when actually they’re just highly efficient at moving their traffic. I’d love to see cycling become more popular in Liverpool and the UK, I just don’t feel like we’re there yet in terms of being a cycle friendly country. But look at other countries that make cycling an attractive option, if you design the infrastructure around cyclists, then cyclists will use it.

This guy Rotherham really takes the biscuit. How on earth is he allowed to oversee and plan transport infrastructure on Merseyside. I have recently discovered that Merseyrail don’t operate or have restricted operations when Everton Football Club play at home. In addition when Merseyrail hits peak traffic they add 8 car units into service. These units can’t stop at my station Cressington, because they are too long for the platform. Please correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t captain Chaos instrumental in the planning and roll out of the new stock of trains for Merseyside. Shelling out half a billion pounds on new stock and station improvements obviously didn’t include crowd management and safety. Rotherham would be better suited to running a circus.

They draw up their hopelessly unambitious plans without listening to what anyone wants. They put zero effort in to anything. Then they announce what they have firmly already decided to do and we are all supposed to clap like seals for them, as our city slides further down any liveability ranking going. That Liverpool Labour for you. And now we have a government which is very similar!

Take a look at Chinese track less trams, excellent cost effective alternative to conventional trams

With this type of funding, the Metro Mayor should be focusing on one project only – the reopening of the Wapping, Victoria and Waterloo tunnels, so that the City Line can be connected to Merseyrail network.

My own opinion is that we’ve needed better train links for both ground’s a station at boundary street bridge is obvious for me. But also i believe a new train line and train station close to anfield needs to be looked at

By far the best cost benefit ratio you’ll get is to build a proper protected cycling network. Low cost, huge benefits in terms of free travel, health benefits, lower pollution, fewer fatalities on the road and it can be done very quickly, as has been shown in cities around the world. Good to see money allocated to it, but should be more. Positive news though

@ Dec 7, 12.10am, am not against cycling nor cycle lanes but you see some and there is literally only a handful of cyclists in them all week. The vast majority of people won’t be cycling to work, the shops, supermarket, the theatre, the match, etc and probably will drive. The best way for the Mayor to get people onto public transport is not building up the bus network it’s by expanding the rail network and building a permanent, dedicated tram network which people can rely on.

I note the various comments about the lack of use of cycle lanes. As a regular cyclist I’m astonished to see how infrequently our pavements are used. Rarely see anybody on them. Maybe we should get rid of them too, widen the roads and create a bit more space for our hard done to drivers.

Almost a decade into devolution in the city region and we continue to have a collection of piecemeal schemes of little or no impact on local growth.

A few good things like the Baltic rail station but all in all a big disappointment. No bold vision, no big investment: Not a single Merseytram route or an additional Merseyrail route! I question whether that bendy bus route will be rapid transit, that means completely congestion free from end to end. Do not believe so. So sad when you compare those timid investments to what Manchester got with the “big bang” tram extensions a few years ago and the planned urban rail extensions. Or compare to European cities of a similar size at https://www.urbanrail.net/eu/euromet.htm So sad, Liverpool deserves so much better!

Smart ticketing does not have the unions approval… It will cost jobs… So pushing with that could cause more disruption than it helps.