With a £10bn budget this year, Transport for London is a big transport player. In fact the entire budget of the Department of Transport, covering the whole of the UK, is just £25bn. OK, half of TfL's budget is from fare income, but TfL is big. I've seen it go from joining up London buses and underground to an integrated transport service co with state of the art smart ticketing, and a network that includes road, rail, light rail, underground and river services and responsibility for much of the associated infrastructure and road charging. It's actually done pretty well. Most recently, TfL's competence in running the East London Line overground has drummed up a chorus of public calls for the organisation to take over the running of all of London's suburban commuter rail services. The oystercard, and better trains, staffing and stations than the franchised operators mean commuters as far out as Dartford or Gravesend want to be part of the TfL network.
I did quite well personally from London's superb public transport network; expansion (i.e. better travel time distances to central London) put £50k+ on my house, just as Crossrail will do for homeowners along its entire 73 mile length. Businesses of course also benefit greatly; not only from enhanced customer access, but more importantly from enhanced access to staff, who can use multi-mode transport for their work journey. It works. OK, so TfL is good. So what?
Well, if you're reading this from Manchester, or Nottingham, or Peterborough, you'd have got the point already. This is from a
Commons library report, now a little old
If you add London and the South-East together, this bit of our geography gets 38% of the national spend on transport. No wonder it's quite good.
It does also call into question as to who will benefit if HS2 goes ahead. Will these improved north - south travel time distances benefit folk in Birmingham as much as they do folk in London? And what of those who want to travel east-west outside of London? From Liverpool to Leeds, say?
With interest rates close to zero, there is no better time for government infrastructure investment. The problem is in ensuring it's the
right investment.
22 comments:
Of course the biggest government subsidy goes to those who travel in some of the least pleasant ways.
Container truck or rubber dinghy are two that come to mind.
Anyway, a single on those routes can set one up for life, free school and house, everything else subsidised.
What was it that Mr. Whittington's cat said?
I now live in the South West.
The mainline from Waterloo to Exeter has several single track stretches when you get beyond Salisbury. A train is nearly always delayed before Tisbury, sometimes as long as 20 minutes, waiting for a train coming the other way to clear the line. It would cost a tiny proportion of the £100+ billion currently being proposed to spend on HS2 to upgrade the entire length to dual track.
And then there's the A303, with its notorious single-carriageway stretches in Wiltshire, between Stonehenge and Mere.
The West Country isn't vulnerable to Labour in many places, but it IS vulnerable to the LibDems and although they may be reduced in Westminster, they have a very effective local ground-campaign which means they will remain a threat.
When allocating Transport funding to the regions, it would be a mistake to focus solely on the north.
It really must be terrible up North.
I live on the South Coast, with a choice between Southern (notoriously slow and unreliable) and SouthWestern, which used to be ok, but since the franchise change has been steadily getting worse, culminating in the longest rail strike ever last month.
It seems clear that shutting down HS2 and spending a fraction of that anywhere more than 50 miles outside London would generate substantially greater benefit.
I believe that the whole HS2 nonsense was driven by some EU integrated transport plan, which is no doubt the real reason that the DoT and so many politicians support it. Now we are leaving we should jettison it, pronto.
Of course, HS2 has to be in the target here as value-for-money seems to be thrown out of the window in favour of backhanders and brown envelopes. There is now way the now estimated £108bn for HS2 can possibly represent value for the public - the interest payments alone - even at close-to-zero rates - can't possibly be covered by ticket sales.
There are countless stories of 'need' across the country - my own is the result of a single closed road event (seemingly once a week nowadays) meaning a 2.5 hour diversion - I was caught out by one last year - thankfully I don't have to travel a lot. But much of this is a Scottish Government fault I think (not sure how the funding of 'our' roads is secured).
Apart from the outrageous costs of HS2 there needs to be an inquiry into who benefits - literally - as the implication that corruption abounds is hard to discount. You could chauffeur people for less.
Pound to a pinch of snot HS2 will go ahead. The mood music is moving that way, we are in too deep anyway and Boris is in hock to The North. There might be some sop to the budget over runs but that's all.
A sensible government might look at how we plan large projects. We might compare the French method - draw a line, pay good compo, piss off and we build it. Whereas the British method is to dicker and delay, inquire and enquire forever at great expense and then hire endless lawyers to quibble and cheesepare compensation, this before any site activity.
So give Dominic a drawing board, a map, a thick black marker pen and a wad of cash and job's a good-un.
There has never been any compulsion from the European Union over transport infrastructure projects.
However, there has been regional and other assistance for that purpose, notably in places such as South Wales and the North East.
Rubbish JPM, HS2 is the next step in the EU wide plan. HS3 and 4 would complete the web. They need the rail routes to move troops round the empire as quickly as possible.
I agree with DeeDee99 and Andrew Douglas, living as I do in 'eastern South West'.
The Lib Dems were always strong but when they ahd a stronger national unity. Now LDs in each region - apart from London - are totally out of kilter with the LD national 'plan', unless BoJo makes some serious cock-ups they won't gain much any time soon.
Raedwald, in the 25 billion is Network Rail included? That sucks up another 6-7 billion. I wish when lefties moaned about privatisation/re nationisation they were informed that the rail network is only partly privatised i.e. the TOC try to make a buck from trains but all the cards are held by Network rail (DoT by any other name).
@JPM
Compulsion? Perhaps not, but being 'funded' (by our own money) through the Connecting Europe Facility is (was) certainly an inducement.
https://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/news/uk-transport-infrastructure-chosen-eu-funding_en
A quick go-ogle has the original estimate for - I think - 113 miles as £33 billion which is grotesque for the absolute lack of tangible benefits which everybody knows to be the case.
Now £108 billion. Which is simply obscene and whoever is responsible for this hard of white elephants should be fired and never again be let near anything more complex than a public shithouse.
When typing, I made the initial error of "108 bullion". But thinking about it.
Gold is 19300kg per cubic meter and the price is currently £1225 an ounce, or around £43200 per kg.
£108 billion would buy a road of gold 113 miles long, 2 metres thick and 7m wide!!
That would at least be some use as a gold reserve!
Yes, there is an integrated transport plan for the European Union.
It ain't compulsory though.
There are others by peer-to-peer nations all over the place too, and they generally interface.
Span Ows - Network Rail £12.4bn, HS2 £2.6bn, Highways England £5.2bn, Local Authority Transport £2.2bn & misc
Mark, gold costs about £0.84 billion per cubic metre.
Do your arithmetic again eh?
Hurray, after all these years you finally got me!
Readwald , in your praise of TfL and public transport you neglect the current boondoggle going on with the ULEZ and
the LEZ which will seriously impact ordinary joes driving older cars in London.
Still pass an MOT emissions test but not Komrade Khan’s fanciful euro 6 limits set by cycle nazis, pedestrianistas and Green forest fairies.
Khan’s chums in taxi , bus and haulage companies just pollute as always and pass on the charge.
Joe public is told by TfL to “sell your car, buy a bike” or swallow the 24/7 charge .
My toolboxes don’t fit well on public transport as I’m not in a “service” job..
r-w.
By far and away most unlawful immigrants simply land normally at airports on visas, and that's the last that the authorities know about them.
I'm not sure if we're even counting them in and out again yet.
Those who come in as stowaways or on dinghies are a tiny fraction.
But if they are found, then they don't get any of that stuff unless they have a good case to stay and also qualify like anyone else. They get deported.
Mark, a gold road of the depth and breadth you specify about nine metres long would cost you £108 billion.
Interesting.
It doesn't alter the basic point about the grotesque waste of money it is. Or why the costs are out of control
I know which would be the more useful in the discussion of £108bn of HS2 or £108bn of gold.
It isn't HS2.
At least gold might appreciate in value, looks good and doesn't ruin the countryside (might ruin countries though ;) )
Can anyone tell me of genuine advantages for HS2 that couldn't be achieved by modest spending on existing infrastructure? "Speed" is not an acceptable answer.
Another question - will the CO2 created in building HS2 ever be offset by its 'green' use? I can guess the answer to that one pretty easily though...
The big problem with the HST is that, in spite of its cost, it doesn't get anywhere near the North. Teesside, Newcastle, Carlisle and Hull are as far away as ever.
Don Cox
Yes, the cost-benefit analysis of HS2 is shocking, compared with China's bridge here which only cost about one tenth the amount:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong–Zhuhai–Macau_Bridge
But they didn't have to rely on the private sector.
Living in the rural South West, it is an honour that my taxes fund transport infrastructure upgrades everywhere except here. Shapps announcement y'day about re-opening rural railway lines mentioned the Midlands and the North, yet public transport in the SW is largely conceptual. My MP tells me that Somerset, one of the largest counties in England is second from bottom in the rail finding league.
As for HS2 benefiting the SW. Huh
DeeDee99 @07:38 and Elby the Beserk @16:31
Be careful in wishing for easier, faster, cheaper links to London and the SE.
It could change the SW in ways you may not like.
Post a Comment