Transport planners are asking the wrong question - which is why their answer is always 'more trains'

Places of work are not conveniently distributed and, to make matters worse, where most people live is more disbursed than planners seem to think. Since most people don't live in dense inner-city suburbs and don't work in 'central business districts' (this is true even for a city like London), transport planning solutions founded on urban transit from suburb to city don't work. Transport planners are asking the wrong question and getting the wrong answer.

Here's Joel Kotkin talking about Los Angeles:

If you want a job in Southern California, it is very useful to have a car. The average worker in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (which includes Orange County) can get to fewer than 1 percent of the jobs by transit in 30 minutes. By car, the average worker can get to 33 times as many jobs, according to University of Minnesota research. In Riverside-San Bernardino, the average worker can get to nearly 100 times as many jobs by car as by transit in 30 minutes.

Yet, as Kotkin observes, the city managements in Southern California have "...decided only their solution — more trains — is an acceptable alternative." There's no consideration of ride-hailing, ride-sharing or private jitneys - responses that work with the dispersed nature of the place and the realities of how people live.

West Yorkshire is, you'll all agree, pretty urban in nature but its land area is a third bigger than Greater London with a quarter of the population. And, for all Leeds supposed significance (something I consider consistently overstated to the detriment of the region), the distribution of employment is such that the same applies to West Yorkshire as does in Los Angeles - if you want a job it's pretty useful to have a car.

Despite this reality, transport planners remain transfixed by the idea of the train (or some other fixed line system such as trams, streetcars or trolley buses) - transport solutions that, as one wag put it, "take people from one place they don't want to be to another place they don't want to be". We go to London, which has the most comprehensive public transport system of any major city anywhere, and say "let's do that" without appreciating the constraints of physical geography, where people live and where they work. We need a tram because Manchester has a tram.

But Manchester's tram system doesn't serve most of Greater Manchester:



So, because the tram doesn't go near where most Mancunians live, they do what they've done for years - get in their car and drive to work. Tram systems are great but still, for places that have them, represent fewer than 5% of commuter journeys.

The central problem here - one that transport planners must know but seem to ignore - is that the distribution of people and jobs simply isn't suited to the sort of mass transit solutions those planners like other than where population density is high and there has been a long history of major investment in transport infrastructure (London and Tokyo are the two best examples). Given that it is uneconomic to run relative cheap bus services into many dispersed parts of West Yorkshire what hope do we have of creating a fixed infrastructure transit system that can replace using the car?

Last night I had a conversation with some folk about buses and taxis (it started with us talking about getting the train to Carlisle). The conclusion of the conversation was that, if there were more than two of you then getting a taxi to Bingley station for the train is cheaper than using the bus. And, even with two people the extra cost of a cab is minimal (seven quid in a taxi, six quid and change on the bus). So you get a taxi that comes at your convenience, gets you there quicker and picks you up from your front door rather than have you stand in the wind and rain at a bus stop.

So the right way to think about transport in this case is "how do we make taxis cheaper, cleaner and safer". But that's not what transport authorities are doing - quite the opposite. When a system arrives (ride sharing) that promises to do just this the response of authorities is to try and stop the improvement. And the same goes for ride-hailing, jitneys and mini-buses - public authorities put regulatory barriers in the way, often at the behest of those whose interests are affected by these innovations.

This isn't to say you shouldn't have a tram (although I consider it the wrong thing for West Yorkshire) but to argue for transport planning to work with human behaviour rather than to see itself as trying to force people to change that behaviour. I never drive into Leeds city centre, not because I'm trying to save the planet or think cars are evil but because it's cheap and convenient for me to do so (especially when my wife drops me off at the station). I do drive into Bradford centre because the public transport option isn't cheaper or more convenient.

Joel Kotkin is right to criticise this sort of statement from transport chiefs (this is from the CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Phil Washington):

“It’s too easy to drive in this city. We want to reach the riders that left and get to the new ones as well. And part of that has to do with actually making driving harder.”

Since no transport system based on fixed lines can serve a dispersed population as well as the car, this attitude condemns many people to a less pleasant, more expensive and slower journey that can't be substituted for a ride on a public transport system. Yes the new capacity will fill up (although it is interesting to note that most journeys on UK tram systems outside London are not commuter journeys) but it will be marginal to the totality of journeys.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the 'decarbonisation' of road transport (what you use to generate the electricity, how to keep all those cars charged up, power grid problems, etc.) but the intention of public authorities is to do just that - we're committed to 100% zero-emission vehicles by 2040. It would be, therefore, better to invest in resolving those unanswered questions than to pile more billions into transport systems that don't even begin to answer the question we should be asking - how can people move around as they do now but more efficiently, more safely and more cleanly?

....

High speed rail still isn't the solution to the North's economic problems

****

The other evening I was talking with Ray about public transport. A conversation at the end of which we agreed to disagree. However, Ray was absolutely right in his belief that public transport is really about linking close places better - what we might call "intensity" - rather than smoothing the connection between distant places. Far more people want to travel swiftly and easily to a place three miles away that to a place 300 miles away.

Yet the grand and important planning people focus almost entirely in INTER-city travel rather than on INTRA-city travel. Except of course when they speak of London where billions has been spent to maintain that city's best-in-class transport system. We are still committed to the nonsense of high speed rail (and let's be clear that opposition isn't just about a bunch of Buckinghamshire NIMBYs) even though the case is becoming ever flimsier:

The MPs also question the assumptions made about savings to business travellers using the line. They say it is not the case that the time spent on a train is unproductive because in fact many use the train as an extension to the office.

The report also highlights a failure in the planning for HS2 to consider the benefits and costs of alternatives such as investment in broadband and video conferencing.

There is a real need for investment in public transport - you only have to look at the local impact of extensions to tram systems in Manchester and Sheffield to appreciate its importance. However, we need to focus on local intensity, on linking places within a city-region to other places within that system. The aim should be to replicate the scale, scope and integration of London's system in, for example, the urban conglomeration stretching from Liverpool to Leeds.

Thirty odd billion wouldn't get us all the way to that ideal but it would be a whole lot more value than spending the same on a vanity project that - we now know - contains no noticeable economic benefits.  High speed rail will not make the North more successful whereas the proven technologies of buses, trams and local trains will have a positive impact and will provide real, tangible and short-term benefits for real people.

.....

We need investment in local transport not another grand rail scheme

You will know that I am not especially keen on the proposals for a high speed train, initially to Birmingham and subsequently along two spurs to Manchester and Leeds respectively.  And – in anyone’s book – this is going to cost a great deal of money (I am using the cost figures from supporters of HS2):

HS2 phase one: London to Birmingham (The phase currently up for debate), construction start date 2015/16 completion 2026. Time frame from planning to completion 15 years. Total cost £15.8 to £17.4 Billion for construction plus £2.8 billion for rolling stock all 50+ units. That makes for a total cost of £18.6 to £20.2bn over 15 years.

Let’s call the cost for the link to Birmingham, £20billion – a nice round figure. Now, leaving aside the fact that our public finances simply don’t have that kind of money, is this the best use of such a large public investment?  It seems a little group call itself the North West Business Leadership Team think that it is:

“As members of the North West Business Leadership Team, we know that economic growth in the north of England is already being choked off by a lack of capacity in its increasingly busy transport links...”

It seems that the ability of besuited business leaders to get to that ever so vital meeting in London is compromising the economic development of the North? I guess that low skill levels, high taxes and the low levels of business start-ups have nothing to do with the underperformance of the North! And, let’s be clear here, the proposals for a new train set will not be completed until at least 2030 but in the meantime businesses in Manchester, Leeds and Bradford will have to struggle on with the clunky old train set we have at the moment! So not a contribution to solving the current economic problems - maybe the recession after next?

And remember folks that the North West Business Leadership Team was keen on another big white elephant – one that thankfully the North West’s voters nobbled – the Greater Manchester congestion charge!

Mike Blackburn, Chairman of the NWBLT’s Transport Group and the North West Regional Director of BT, said: "The government’s package of support amounts to £1,000 for every man, woman and child living in Greater Manchester today.

"Provided the promised infrastructure investment is in place before road pricing is introduced, we believe it is right that part of the cost of improvements should be borne by those who choose to travel by car at peak times."

So I guess these folk – sitting in their universities, banks and management consultancies – have form. Which brings me, dear reader, to the question – if you had £20billion to spend on public transport improvements, what would you spend it on? I’m pretty confident that addressing a multitude of backlogged road schemes (anyone for a tunnel under Saltaire?), local rail improvements, bus initiatives and motorway junction upgrades could be done for this sort of cash.

And these improvements would directly benefit millions of people – the ones for whom shaving a few minutes off the trip to London isn’t a real benefit at all. Journey’s to work, to local centres and to visit friends or family will be quicker, easier and more pleasant. Elderly people in Cullingworth might have a little more choice as the investment could support rural access and better bus networks. I think you get the gist – building a grand railway at huge cost brings little or no benefit to the vast mass of ordinary people. Investing in local transport systems benefits everyone not just the lucky few who have a need to go to London and the wherewithal to afford the high fares.

If the panjandrums of big business in Manchester want to have a grand new railway, here’s a suggestion – why don’t they pay for it themselves?

 ....