transport - past and future - in bratislava and vienna

Bratislava's latest metre gauge trams - though 90% of the fleet seem to be at least 20 years old.


Communist-era bus station.


The hydrofoil from Bratislava docks at Vienna.


The most elegant way of getting round Vienna!

Well and truly back from our visit to Bratislava in Slovakia. An absolute gem of a city and recommended to you all! It's so compact that you just need a pair of feet to get around.

But Bratislava has a superb public transport system, which we did dip in to. The backbone is, of course, the impressive tramway system. It reaches most parts of the city on the north bank of the Danube, with the longer lines almost taking on an interurban nature. Very fast, cheap and amazingly busy. There are also trolleybuses, a form of transport which surely will make a huge comeback in the UK on routes that are not quite busy enough for trams. And those old dinosaurs, buses, although the newer buses aren't bad at all.

Bratislava is only 64km from Vienna and will soon be reconnected by tram - there is only a 7km gap on the interurban from Vienna and the southern Bratislava suburb of Petržalka, which will soon have it's own high speed tramway into the city. But for now there's the fantastic Twin Cities Liner hydrofoil which links the two cities in just 75 minutes via a very scenic and fascinating trip up the Danube.

Vienna of course is home to the world's second largest tramway network. But the only transport we used in Vienna was the fiacre - the famous horse-drawn carriage. This was a great experience and could quite well become a model for future road based transport, as the carriage was very well appointed!

bristol's tramways take shape

Works alongside Hartcliffe Way, Bristol, January 2010. Trams at last??

Bristol has a population of 380,615.
Bratislava (Slovakia) has a population of 426,927.

Bratislava has 40km of tramways and 13 lines. This is in addition to a suburban railway network, metro, trolleybuses and even (LOL) buses.

Bristol has 0km of tramways and 0 lines. This is in addition to a railway network that cleverly avoids most places, including Portishead, no metro, no trolleybuses and lots of (LOL) buses, many of which proudly proclaim 'Not in Service'.

No, the pic isn't of tramway works in Bristol. Our Supertram was abandoned a few years ago by a bunch of spineless councillors who would rather look backwards than forwards and have consequently condemned Bristol to years of congestion. The trams WILL come, that's inevitable. No real city lacks trams. What the pic is of is the new cycleway - but the interesting thing is that it can, and will, convert easily to a tram route. Perhaps the councillors here are taking their heads out of the sand and are - at last - looking ahead, even if they are doing it covertly.

So what's Bratislava got to do with anything? Well, apart from being a similar size to Bristol it's our holiday destination in June. And why did we choose it? Precisely because it does have modern public transport, which makes it tourist friendly.

And what's any of this got to do with the New S&D? Well, Bristol will be a destination for us, using the old Pensford route. In fact I fully expect trams to shadow our route south from Bristol to Whitchurch station on the New S&D. And trams will almost certainly reappear in Bournemouth, Poole and up to Broadstone and Wimborne. Over the longer term trams/light railways will pop up everywhere, feeding into the new rail network, carrying frieght as well as passengers. Those dinosaurs who think that the 21st century will merely see a reversal of the Beeching cuts simply haven't understood the urgency and depth of the energy crisis.

So keep watching this space. I fully expect to retake these pictures by 2015 with tram tracks running down Hartcliffe Way!