North East Transport Plan 2021

Rather than high speed rail; the Beeching cuts to the rail network across the entire north of England and Scottish Borders should be reversed in order to reconnect forgotten communities and improve rail travel to Glasgow and Edinburgh (our nearest capital city for many of us in northern England).
Why would anyone want to travel to that foreign country called London?

The Transport Plan for the NE consultation should have been for the entire north of England.
We were carved up into the current Euro subregions of NW, NE, Yorkshire & Humberside in order to comply with the electoral requirements of the EU Parliament and Commission. Having left the EU, it is essential for the reunification of northern England as a region to be implemented with its own devolved regional parliament and government with our existing MPs as our elected regional representatives and at least the same powers and levels of funding as Scotland.
According to the BBC, so it must be true, northern England has a population and an economy larger than that of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales combined so our own devolved regional parliament and government is the least we should expect. Little or nothing proposed in the consultation will be implemented until that reunification and our own devolved parliament are in place.
Most people will not mind much if our parliament is located in York or Lancaster; Carlisle or NewcastleGateshead but it will be important to know because it could have a significant impact on the development of transport and other infrastructure.
That gap between Baltic and The Sage on the south bank of The Tyne would have been ideal once the Tyne and Wear Metro System improvements and expansion are in place: Sage, Parliament, Baltic as new Metro Station names have a certain ring to them once the new line is in place - it was part of the plan, wasn't it? Talking of The Metro: there needs to be a massive improvement and expansion: more stations on existing lines, termini on existing lines dramatically extended and new lines entirely added to the system.
A moratorium on all building, construction and development work in London and the south east for the next twenty years + at least apart from emergencies would help fund the levelling - up agenda in the north of England and other regions of the UK blighted by the neglect of the House of Commons for far too long. The cancellation of Trident, nuclear power stations and High Speed Rail and all similar white elephant projects would also help fund the colossal amount of work in improving our basic services, provision and infrastructure.
The Metro should have a spur to the International / Scandinavian Shipping Terminal. The reinstatement of The Port of Tyne - Norway car ferry service with additional safety and security measures followed by the reinstatement of the services to Denmark and Sweden so that the City of Tyneside again becomes the gateway hub connecting northern England and Scandinavia with the countries and regions of the British Isles. It is time for the 1930s plan for a unitary authority for the Tyneside conurbation. The abolition of North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne City Councils and their replacement with a new unitary local authority (the City of Tyneside? or Newcastle City Region? would reduce costs and dramatically improve the provision of local services, including transport especially when working with the regional parliament and government.
The Metro also needs to be extended into County Durham, Northumberland and possibly Cumbria. The extension from The St James terminus into the neglected western fringes of the City, along the Tyne valley connecting communities at a distance from the railway stations, perhaps with Metro stations at tourist destinations such as Vindolanda and The Sill on their way to Carlisle City Centre via Carlisle Airport and node points connecting with the railway stations at Hexham, Brampton for example.
The Newcastle Airport terminus should be extended to Otterburn jn readiness for connection with the Border Railway - the Scottish end of the Waverley Line linking Edinburgh and Carlisle which should have been reopened in its entirety years ago.
Rather than high speed rail, most communities just need a rail, metro, public transport link to a hub community with all the services needed. Being able to travel ten to fifteen minutes more quickly to London at huge cost to the natural environment and public purse is irrelevant to our needs.
Electric public transport and e-cars will need to use green energy - ie not generated by nuclear power if we are serious about the climate emergency. Following The Science, and when the full nuclear fuel cycle is taken into consideration, and the fact that vast quantities of carbon-rich fuels continue to be burned meeting the needs of the nuclear industries; then nuclear is rendered a fossil fuel by proxy.
People will boycott electric cars and public transport powered by nuclear generated electricity because nuclear is part of the problem, not the solution to the climate emergency.
As a family carer coping without social services support to meet the needs of my severely disabled brother and elderly mother, use of public transport is currently impossible even without considering the impact of the viral pandemic.
Airports and other transport hubs should have been closed immediately to halt virus transmission.

A well thought out, clearly presented set of ambitions, putting carbon neutral at its heart. I think the key is that it is coordinated, so different parts of the system work seamlessly together. Transport habits and needs are not going to change overnight and the plan needs to evolve and be constantly reviewed, but it is a great starting point - please implement!

The survey at https://www.transportnortheast.gov.uk/transportplan/ is completely pointless. It was obviously designed before the pandemic took hold and takes absolutely no account of the current situation, or how that may impact peoples' use of transport in either the immediate or long-term future.

Use of all types of transport has already changed dramatically and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. What is the point trying to design a system and make plans based on a situation and an economic reality that is already obsolete and will more than likely change beyond recognition before any implementation can take place.

Hve you just not noticed thaty EVERYTHING has changed and that the economic effect of the pandemic is likely to make any 'plan' completely pointless?

Wake up and smell the coffee and get back to the drawing board - if indeed you still have a drawing board to go back to!!!

Hello everyone. Thank you very much for giving your views here, they will be sent to the team at Transport North East who are in charge of this consultation. We would encourage everyone who has posted here, if you haven't already, to visit their website and give your comments there using their online survey form: https://www.transportnortheast.gov.uk/transportplan/ (note: if the link does not work for you, please copy and paste it into a browser). Thank you.