Sir Rod Eddington‘s report into the future of the UK’s transport infrastructure seems to have drawn remarkably little media flak.
Personally, I find it odd that the task of developing the blueprint for UK transport was handed to the man whose Chief Executive high-back, leather chair at British Airways was still warm from his butt cheeks.
It seems to me a bit like, for example, recruiting the sitting Chief Executive of Virgin Trains to become both the Chairman and Chief Executive of the Strategic Rail Authority and then wondering why the SRA revoked the licence of Silverlink, the only direct competitor to Virgin Trains on the route between London and Birmingham.
Nevertheless, Sir Rodders has seen the future and – fuck me gently with a chainsaw – it involves masses more air travel and huge airport expansion. The airline industry, you will doubtless know, does not pay tax on aviation fuel, despite the proven damage it does to the planet.
Eddington says that air travellers should pay full environmental cost of their journey through taxes and surcharges. That’s air travellers, you note – not air carriers, who will presumably therefore still be free to fly half-empty planes around the globe with impugnity.
Eddington also says that he has found little evidence to support a truly high-speed rail link between London and the north. Not least because, at £200 for a Standard Class Open Return rail ticket between London and Manchester, it is now actually cheaper to fly between the UK’s first and third cities. And, given the shambolic state of the West Coast Main Line, it’s very nearly as quick to fly, too.
There is one part of Eddington’s report with which I agree: the re-regulation of buses outside London. Deregulation was one of Thatcher’s maddest follies, made during that wild-eyed period when she seemed to have no clue what the day, month or year were. Since deregulation we mere provincial mortals have seen bus routes slashed, fares spiral and timetables rendered increasingly meaningless.
There are no cheap, easy or painless answers to 40 years of underinvestment, corner-cutting and neglect: it’s going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to sort out the messes that are this country’s current road, bus and rail networks. “New” Labour has wasted nine years and appears to have fudged yet another opportunity; let’s hope that the next Prime Minister – whoever he or she is – has the cojones to grasp the nettle properly and stand up to the air lobby.
I understand from persons in the know that part of the problem we have in this country is in our repeated refusal to abide by the aphorism: “A stitch in time saves nine”. There have been numerous opportunities and plans to upgrade or renew our transport infrastructure at various times in 20th century history, but an excuse was found on each occasion (usually lack of political will to make the required investment) which meant that the vast majority of our rail, road and underground infrastructure (as well as our services infrastructure) is actually Victorian. A bit like someone not wanting to pay for a dentist wondering why all of his teeth have fallen out by the time he’s 40.