OFF THE RAILS, UP IN THE AIR

15 April 2005

Parking mad. Ten spaces short of a multi-storey. That's how their political opponents are hailing the new £5 city centre car parking charge announced yesterday by the ruling coalition on Swansea Council, and there's no surprise there.

After all, this is the Crazy Gang we're talking about here, the people with the Big Picture for Swansea - and their latest big picture, following box office smash A Bridge Too Far Gone, is Slip Bridge II - The Abutments.

They don't come bigger than that.

Better still, the buzz on the streets is that the next big picture is already in the making. Working title? Slip Bridge III - The Local Government Ombudsman.

Now that might be one worth watching.

Back to the car parking row, and critics say the new charge is unfair.

Why should ordinary people have to pay £5 to use places such as the East Burrows Road car park on the river bank next to Sainsbury's, they argue, when the car parks at the Guildhall and County Hall which the councillors use are free?

I should have thought that was obvious.

The East Burrows Road car park, or part thereof, is very possibly the last in a long line of celebrated city centre car parks with an almost complete lack of white lines and a lagoonscape to die for ("You've more chance in the river than if you fall into one of those ruts") - and who needs CCTV in 21st Century Swansea?

A fiver for a few hours with your very own piece of history? Cheap at the price. But hurry - it won't be there much longer. The asphalt is going down now.

The hike in the car park fee, of course, is congestion charging by another name: the aim is to price us out of our cars and entice us on to other forms of transport to meet EU targets for cuts in greenhouse gases.

So what has the coalition in store for us, and why? There's the park and ride, of course, but that was more a Labour Party thing.Indications are that the Crackpot Coalition has new ideas all its own - cutting edge, state-of-the art ideas to create a truly 21st Century transport system for 21st Century Swansea.

To this end, they have ransacked the most sophisticated of technical reports and industry studies (Trainspotters' Annual 2003), debated long into the night in the most prestigious of research institutes ("'Aven't you got no 'omes to got to?"), and paid hush-hush visits to the cities boasting the western world's most advanced mass transport systems (Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield), before coming up with the perfect solution for Swansea: The Tram.

The Tram, it seems, is the answer to everyone's prayers. The Tories because it could be privately owned and funded; Plaid because it would reinforce the national identity with yet another of the Great Little Trains of Wales; and the Lib-Dems because it looks trendy - they've all seen them in Amsterdam - and, best of all, because trams are green.

And these will be no conventional trams ultimately powered by fossil fuel, like the late-lamented Mumbles Train, these will be trams as in turbo rail assisted motors, or trams which are powered directly by - what else with Councillor Rob "Spinner" Speht as coalition transport supremo? - wind turbines stationed out in Swansea Bay.

Ah, you say, but they tried this in the 19th Century when they put a sail on the tramcar that then was the Mumbles Train. It was great while the wind blew in the right direction, but when it didn't they had to summon the poor old horse to tow it in.

So what happens when the winds don't blow and the turbines don't turn and the new trams grind to an abrupt halt halfway across the Royal Ashleigh?

Not a problem, ladies and gentlemen. The crafty coalition is trialling the back-up system first.That's why the Swansea Bay Rider route has been extended from Blackpill to St Helen's.Via the soon-to-be-repositioned Slip Bridge, of course. Woof, woof.