Tram, Bus Or Cycleway from Cranleigh to Guildford?

There have been several suggestions that a tramway along the old cranleigh to guildford railway would be a good thing, in particular cutting congestion on the A281.   I think there are some unconsidered difficulties with the idea, and suggest two alternatives.

                Trams are relatively slow, and as I understand it the point of a light rail system from Cranleigh to Guildford is that the trams could join the national rail network at Artington, continuing to Guildford Rail Station.  However, including a relatively slow tram path into the timetabling for that section, including the fast and slow London – Portsmouth trains and the North Downs link, may be a problem.  A further problem would be the platform height at Guildford; maybe an additonal low platform (and track?) would be needed somewhere. The tracks would cost around £13 million a mile; £104 million for the 8 miles from Cranleigh to the rail junction.

                Alternatively the route could be converted to a dedicated busway.  Using bendy buses for higher capacity, the capacity would be somewhat less than a tramway, although demand would probably be the constraint on capacity in either system.  Clearly a bus cannot join the national rail network, so the buses would link the dedicated route to the A3100 just south of the railway bridge near the a248/a3100 junction.  The new junction would need traffic light control to greenlight the buses onto the road from the busway.  From there, drive on the road to Guildford station.  Cost per mile of such a busway would be around a tenth of the tramway cost, at £1.3 million per mile, total £10 million(Both figures based on single track working, possibly with passing places)

                Both of these ideas ruin the track as a leisure facility.  Cycling, walking, horse riding while being passed by buses or trams at high speed is not an enjoyable experience.

                A second option would be to make the route into a cycle way that actually goes somewhere.  By extending the route from where it meets the national railway by just over 2 miles, round the very old trackbed back to the River Wey, and providing a well surfaced track along the towpath to join with the towpath at Millmead, cycles could easily travel from Cranleigh and Bramley to the centre of Guildford completely off road.  Cost of this (based on TfL construction costs estimates) would be about £0.3 million/ mile, for a total of well under £1 million. It would be good to also have a toucan crossing where the High St. crosses Millmead near Debenhams, cycle parking in the Riverside Market carpark, access through the pedestrianised shopping street to the Bus Station, and safe access from the towpath to Guildford station – with cycle parking there too.   The towpath to station access might be difficult to create, but with the millions saved from  even the cheaper busway option, something could surely be done.