New Walloon government scraps Liège’s streetcar extension

As great was the joy a few weeks ago at the inauguration of the new streetcar in Liège, so great is the disappointment today among the advocates of a sustainable mobility policy for the Liège metropolis. After all, the new Walloon government has abandoned the project to extend the Liège tramway to Herstal and Seraing. In its place, there will be two bus lines.

Ecolo calls the decision a “policy of public disinvestment and ecological sabotage,” and the PS describes it as a “hard blow to the development of the Liège metropolis.”

Too expensive

The new Walloon majority (MR-Les Engagés) thus scraps the extension of the tramway from Liège to Herstal and Seraing, announced during the previous legislature, because it was too expensive. Instead of a streetcar, there will now be two priority bus lines.

These electric buses will run over 15.5 km on dedicated and/or priority lanes, compared to 5.7 km before the extensions. The revamped project now represents an investment of 264 million euros, while the streetcar extensions were estimated at more than 350 million euros.

“It is a winning choice, more useful, more efficient, with a better cost-benefit ratio and less risk,” says Mobility Minister François Desquesnes (Les Engagés). According to Desquesnes, priority buses will serve 2.5 times more residents living within 500 meters of the lines (14,243 people for the streetcar and 37,575 for buses, according to figures from the Organizing Authority for Public and Shared Transport – AOT). Urban reconstruction of municipal and regional roads in Seraing, Herstal, and Saint-Nicolas has also been announced.

Jean-Michel Soors, TEC’s general administrator, also seems to favor the decision. “Tomorrow, we will have a wonderful network with a streetcar and nine structuring lines that will significantly improve the service to Liège,” Soors says.

According to figures from the Walloon Transport Company (OTW), the new bus service costs 7,026 euros per resident over 25, compared with 44,085 euros per resident over 25 if the extensions had been implemented.

Former government parties not happy

Ecolo calls the decision an “incomprehensible choice from the past of the oil-blue coalition.” Stéphane Hazée, the head of the Ecolo group in the Walloon parliament, calls the streetcar “a great project of sustainable, fast, and efficient mobility.” Still, this decision is a “disastrous stopgap solution for the redevelopment of the Liège agglomeration, for its inhabitants and its company’s ecological transition in Wallonia.”

Hazée also says the decision is “all the more incomprehensible since work on the Herstal extension began a year ago, and compensation at a loss will have to be paid for this stoppage.” Moreover, the Ecolo politician also denounces the Liberals’ revolving-door stance, who were still in favor of the extension in the previous government. “The list of capitulations on their part is getting long,” Hazée says.

The PS, another former Walloon governing party, also regrets the decision. “Giving up the extension of the tramway means turning our backs on the opportunity to rethink all mobility and urban space by forming a metropolis.”

The socialist party also points out that the decision was taken without consulting all actors on the ground involved with the urban mobility plan. “The contracts have been signed with the companies, the workers have been hired, the work has begun, and millions of euros have already been spent. Today, all this threatens to turn into a new episode of useless work,” the PS concludes.

Bus versus streetcar?

In general, streetcars can transport more passengers than buses, resulting in lower energy consumption per passenger compared to buses. They also have a higher frequency, and, in the long run, operating costs can be smaller compared to those of a bus service.

After all, a bus has a depreciation period of 16 years, while streetcars tend to have a longer lifespan. This can lower the overall carbon footprint, as there is less material use and less waste over the vehicle’s life cycle.

On the other hand, tramways require more infrastructure investment because they generally have more complex mechanical systems than buses. These can have a long-term effect on the overall maintenance cost of the tramway.

TEC does not yet have electric buses in its fleet. However, 38 new electric buses will be delivered in 2025. By 2030, TEC aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55%. Thus, 400 e-buses will gradually replace diesel vehicles. TEC Walloon Brabant has 48 hybrids in its fleet.