"Transport Crisis"

In the news today were reports on the publication of a report by the think tank "Reform" on the UK's transport infrastructure. Link here.

My particular disagreements with this paper are generally related to the way in which they are ever so slightly massively skewed toward the road lobby. For example they trot out the RAC's old chestnut about how much poor old Mr Motorist pays £X in "motoring taxes" and yet how little of it is spent on the UK's roads.

"British drivers, for example, currently pay over £45 billion every year in the various motoring taxes and less than a fifth of this is invested back in the road network."

Let's consider this for a minute.

Firstly, the cost of motoring in the UK at the present time is at the lowest it has ever been at any time in history, so why complain?

Secondly, most of these so called "motoring taxes" are in the form of "duty". This is not a charge in exchange for a service, it is indirect taxation which is not in any way ringfenced. Duty is also paid on other items, such as alcohol, tobacco, import, and the paperwork for moving house (stamp duty), and yet it would be silly to suggest that, for example, alcohol duty should be ploughed back into the brewing industry.

Thirdly, what on earth would we do with £45bn a year on roads? Thankfully government now broadly recognises that it is impossible to build ones way out of road congestion, so we wouldn't be building more of them. Or would we? The RAC want to go back to a massive programme of road building. Thankfully this is now politically very unpopular.

I would, however advocate the prospect of spending a much greater proportion of the funding from this government cash cow on the UK's transport system as a whole. There is a difference.

The report then dusts off another of the RAC's favourites.

"Too much transport policy is a discussion about whether cars, trains or planes are 'good'. This results in irrational decisions. For example road travel constitutes over 90 per cent of all journeys, compared to less than 7 per cent for rail. Yet in 2006-07 the UK invested £5 billion in rail and only £4.8 billion in roads."

On its own of course this sounds like poor old Mr Motorist is being hard done by.

It's not that simple though, because these numbers do not say when and where these journeys are occurring.

For example, over 80% of people who enter central London do so by public transport. London, as a highly profitable global city, could not function without its mainline rail links and underground, even though neither of these generates a profit in itself. The same is true of other cities and urban areas across the country to some extent.

No amount of investment in roads will bend the laws of time and space to negate the physical impossibility of moving the huge numbers of people, that rail moves daily, in and out of major cities by car. There physically isn't space between buildings to accommodate the road lanes and junctions needed, even if the prospect was politically acceptable to those living in those areas.

It's complete folly in my opinion to bemoan spending however much on method A as opposed to method B on the basis of fairness if A works and B doesn't.

Having parroted the RAC's roads sales pitch for a while, the report then goes on to dismiss a future North-South high speed rail line as a "white elephant", and encourages investment in what it calls "value for money improvement" such as train lengthening. Take the short term view basically.

Given the fact that the trains on the West Coast Main Line, which would be relieved by the proposed "High Speed 2", are already being lengthened to 11 carriages and yet the line is still projected to be completely full within a decade, I cannot see how the high speed line would conceivably be anything like a "white elephant". Indeed, demand for services on High Speed 1, including the new "Javelin" commuter trains, has been well above projected levels. High speed rail is very popular with users and brings huge economic benefits with it.

I have mental images of George Stephenson being told, in the 1820s, not to bother with this "rail-way" scheme as it will clearly be a white elephant, and that the solution to the transport problems between Liverpool and Manchester lies with minor improvements to the turnpikes.

There is, however, one point that this obviously right wing think tank makes that I cannot help but agree with.

The UK currently spends £31bn a year on Social Services, £119bn on health, and a whopping £189bn on "Social Protection" - welfare basically. Transport spending is a mere £23bn a year.

Spending in some areas can provide massive boosts to the future economy of the country, such as capital investment in infrastructure, whilst spending in health and welfare does so far less. Yet, with spending cuts inevitable, where will the money be cut from? Pardon my cynicism but projects like Crossrail, the Nottingham tram extension, High Speed 2, etc are going to look like politically easy targets for cuts, much easier than, for example, trying to reduce the amount being handed out in benefits.

I will conclude with the statement the report opens with, which I agree with completely.

"Britain has an infrastructure shortfall and a cash shortage; the £23 billion transport budget is already being cut. This is despite the fact that infrastructure is one of the most productive parts of government expenditure and could help propel Britain out of the recession. A new policy is needed that frees up transport provision."

In my opinion government must appreciate the importance of transport and end its long history of being the Cinderella department that it is, because the transport problem in the UK is not going to go away, and in fact it is getting worse.