The Stoke Streetcar was a proposed
bus rapid transit system for
The Potteries Urban Area
The Stoke-on-Trent Built-up Area or The Potteries Urban Area or colloquially, simply "The Potteries" is a conurbation in North Staffordshire in the West Midlands region of England.
It includes the City of Stoke-on-Trent, and parts of the boroug ...
(
Stoke-on-Trent,
Newcastle-under-Lyme and
Kidsgrove) in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It would have consisted of two lines, serving five of Stoke's six towns, the city centre with its new Central Business District, Newcastle, Kidsgrove,
Stoke-on-Trent railway station, the
University Hospital of North Staffordshire
Royal Stoke University Hospital (formerly the University Hospital of North Staffordshire) is a teaching and research hospital at Hartshill in the English county of Staffordshire. It lies in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, near the border with New ...
, both universities (including the new University Quarter) and both football clubs. The proposal was developed in partnership with
First Group, and included plans to use the same
Wright StreetCar
The Wright StreetCar is an articulated bus developed by Wrightbus and Volvo for FirstGroup. It was built on the Volvo B7LA chassis, featuring a separate driver compartment at the front, resembling to some extent similar designs in Europe.
It ...
as the
FTR services found in York, Leeds and
Swansea.
Suspension
In late June 2010, the UK
Department for Transport announced that councils would no longer be considering applications for funding for major transport schemes. For this reason, Stoke's city council decided to suspend work on the project. However, work is still planned for the development of the University Boulevard and the new
Hanley bus station.
Network
Construction of the Green Line was proposed to begin in 2013 for completion in 2017. It would have linked four of Stoke's six towns, including the
city centre, as well as Newcastle, Kidsgrove, the railway station and both universities. 14 FTR buses would be used on this route to ensure a waiting time of 10 minutes. The second phase, known as the Blue Line, would link another of Stoke's towns,
Longton, to the new network and have the same core as the Green Line.
University Boulevard
The core of the Streetcar network was to be a new boulevard linking the inconveniently placed railway station and the city centre. Despite the demise of the network, the city council are still continuing with plans to build this boulevard. Most of the boulevard will follow what is currently College Road from the railway station to the Central Business District, before linking to the new bus station on John Street. There were further proposals to make College Road available for local and bus traffic only, possibly by means of bus gates.
Stations
Footnotes
References
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{{Stoke-on-Trent
Transport in Stoke-on-Trent
Guided busways and BRT systems in the United Kingdom
Proposed public transport in the United Kingdom
Potteries Urban Area