BBC Radio 4 is more than usually surreal this morning. Unless my ears deceived me, they just broadcast a nursery school teacher asking her young charges: “What rhymes with ‘bucket’?”. Recipe for disaster, I’d say. Earlier they’d announced that “Google, the world’s biggest search engine” has an opinion. No, the company may have an opinion, or, better, the CEO, but, unless the internet has become self-aware overnight, search engines do not have opinions.

So I decided that, rather than slob about, I’d make a point I’ve been dwelling on overnight.

On the BBC London News, after News at 10, the reporting of the London Transport fare rises brought home to me the scale of the price rises. Bus fares are going to rise by 20p. At the moment my Oyster is charged £1, now it will be £1.20. That’s 20%. Previously I’d only skimmed a BBC report that noted that:

“Bus fares are to go up by 12.7% and Tube fares will rise by 3.9%.”

I hadn’t really taken in the rest:

“Oyster card pay-as-you-go bus journeys are to rise from £1 to £1.20. … and the price of a seven-day bus pass will also jump from £13.80 to £16.60 but London Travelcard prices will be frozen in the vast majority of cases.”

This makes me suspicious. I’ve just downloaded the PDF from the BBC’s report. Yeap. The 12.7% and the 3.9% are spin – well, they’ve been constructed somehow, but without any information as to how, they are virtually worthless.

Like RPI and CPI, these % increases mean little. They do not reflect the effect on specific individuals.

In fact, the fare rises are ludicrously unfair. Is this the start of a Tory assault on the poor?

The key point is that fare rises on buses are much greater than those on the tube. The result is that the cost of living increases fastest for the poorest. Boris may not realise this (Ken did, apparently), but he shares London with people who catch the bus because they can’t afford the tube.

Let’s consider first how the fare changes affect those struggling on the minimum wage. Let’s assume Mr Minimum catches a bus to and from work 5 days a week. That’s 10 fares now at £1.20 rather than £1 – £10/wk now but £12/wk after 2nd January – a 20% increase as already mentioned. Now, the minimum wage recently increased from £5.73 an hour to £5.80, that is by 7p an hour. If Mr Minimum works 40 hours a week, he’s better off by £2.80/wk (before tax) because of the pay rise, but worse off by £2/wk because of the bus fare rise. That’s right – the fare increase has wiped out all but 80p, or (200/280)*100 = 71% of the rise in the minimum wage.

Maybe that’s not incredibly realistic. Mr Minimum might have to take 2 buses to work and 2 back. In that case he’d reach the daily fare cap on the buses. But this has risen from £3.30 to £3.90 or by 18% (exactly where did this 12.7% come from?). More to the point Mr Minimum will have to pay 5*60p = £3 extra per week to get to work. Wiping out his entire annual pay rise plus an additional 20p.

But, of course, if he used the bus to travel to work 5 days a week, Mr Minimum will most likely have taken advantage of the weekly Bus and Tram pass. How has this increased? From £13.80 to £16.60, that is by £2.80 or just over 20%, that’s how. Unbelievable.

If Mr Minimum works a 40 hour week, the bus fare increase wipes out his entire annual pay rise.

On the other hand, fares for most tube commuters will not increase at all – some peak fares and more to the point 7 day Travelcard prices are (mostly) frozen.

Bizarrely, off-peak tube fares have risen more than peak fares. The way to use the system more efficiently is to spread the load more. I would have thought a greater differential was called for. Train fares are punitive at peak times. Maybe both could converge on a happy medium.

I was going to mention pensioners, who have just been awarded a £2.40 weekly rise. Then I realised that pensioners can travel free on the buses anyway. In fact, pensioners are now rather more than £2.40 a week better off, since they would have been entitled to no rise at all based on RPI, which is negative. In general the increase in the state pension is based on an inflation index that includes transport costs, even though they pay less for transport than the general population.

What’s actually needed are indices that reflect the cost of living rises for different segments of the population, to be used for different purposes.

But there’s a bigger issue. When are we going to start treating the low-paid fairly?

I’ve mentioned before that it is possible to write an essay about every UK rail journey. I have something of a backlog – I hope soon to find time to explain to the world the horrors of weekend engineering work – but want to give yesterday’s journey a mention.

I went on a day-trip to Birmingham, taking in the National Trust Back to Back houses and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Both well worth-while.

But as ever with UK trains, as much emotional energy is expended on the journey as at the destination.

I bought advance tickets for £8 outward (11:03 Euston to 12:27 Birmingham New Street), £14:50 return (19:10 Brum to 20:34 Euston) weeks ago. There are no reservations (phew!) on Cambridge trains so you can take any you want to London. This in itself is daft, since, if I’d wanted to, I could have added to the crush on the country’s most overcrowded train, the 07:15 from Cambridge – incidentally shortly to be increased from 8 carriages to 12, which will still not be enough for everyone to have a seat, as passengers might expect, given the extortionate fares at commuting times.

I passed on the 07:15 yesterday morning and instead took the 09:15, which actually goes at 09:20 (virtually all the other fast trains are on the quarter hour in both directions), since keeping things simple for the travelling public is not very high up First Capital Connect’s priority list.

The fares were cheap, but this is not the product I want. Nor do the vast majority of the travelling public. What we require are reasonably priced walk-on fares.

The point, of course, is that the penalty for missing the train applicable to your ticket is severe. I read somewhere of someone having to fork out £200 for a new ticket on the Birmingham train. So one reason I took a train (the 09:20) to arrive at King’s Cross (a few minutes walk from Euston where my Birmingham train departed at 11:03) shortly after 10am was to minimise the possibility of missing my connection.

The stress continued through the day, of course, as everything had to be timed to ensure I was at the station in good time for the 19:10. All this, of course, adds considerably to what I term the effective journey time. You end up creating a lot of dead time making sure you don’t miss the sodding trains.

But Virgin managed to increase my train stress levels still further. Get this: when I looked at my train tickets the evening before I saw that the reservations were correct (I’m sure I checked these when the tickets arrived the day after I bought them online). But somehow the actual Cambridge to Birmingham tickets – referred to by number on the reservations – both said “From: Cambridge; To Birmingham”. How could this happen? It seems that when you book tickets online they’re not, as you might suppose, printed automatically. The operation, it appears, is not entirely controlled by computer. No, room for human error has been allowed. I strongly suspect someone takes your online booking and types it again into the ticketing system!

Reflecting on this, and the melee of ticket inspectors at Euston, a cynic might conclude that the UK railways are in reality a very expensive job creation scheme. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Anyway, more stress, as I had to check at Euston that Virgin Trains weren’t going to get arsey and leave me stuck in Brum without a valid return ticket. Then I had to get a replacement ticket issued at Birmingham New Street, which required supervision by a supervisor apparently, though I was careful to explain the problem carefully and the staff were reasonably reasonable – though an expression indicating he’d scented blood flickered across the face of the ticket inspector on the return journey, before I wheeled out my careful explanation again, in my most polite deferential manner. Advice: keep on the right side of these guys!

Still, the trains ran moreorless to time. The 19:10 left Brum a little late, but must have arrived at Euston a little early, as I reached King’s Cross at 20:42, which would have been pushing it if we’d pulled into Euston at the scheduled time of 20:34. Perhaps I should explain how such an early arrival can happen. The point, of course, is that the train timetables are padded. The LSE reported recently (pdf) that “on many routes… it is now no faster to commute into London than in the immediate post-war period, and it is substantially slower than in the 1970s”. I suspect a large part of the reason is an unintended consequence: my guess is that the rail companies have more to gain from ensuring their punctuality targets are achievable than from attempting to speed passengers to their destination as fast as the expensive technology will allow.

Luckily, then, I was at King’s Cross in time to catch the 20:45 fast train to Cambridge. Except there isn’t a 20:45. I took the 20:52 slow train, but this arrives at Cambridge after 10pm, around about the same time as the 21:15. In other words after 20:15 there is effectively only an hourly service to Cambridge. If you can’t control when you arrive at King’s Cross very accurately – assume you arrive there at a random time – then your average effective journey time is 15 minutes longer once the xx:45 fast trains stop running. Explanation: earlier in the evening you have to wait an average 15 minutes for a fast train; after 20:15 you have to wait an average 30 minutes. Catching a slow train at 20:52 or 21:52 or 22:52 gains you virtually nothing (especially as these trains are even slower than the xx:52 services during the day).

Of course, I could hardly argue that a 20:45, 21:45, 22:45, 23:45 and so on should be operated if there were no demand. But there is. Even with the current service, when a lot of people must choose to carry on what they’re doing in London a little longer to catch the fast 21:15 rather than rush for the 20:52 – heck, a lot of people must choose not to take the train to or via London so often in the first place because the evening return service is so poor – the 20:52 is packed when it leaves London and at least half full (that’s a hundred or two passengers, paying probably at least £6.00 on average for the return leg of their journey – do the math) when it reaches Cambridge.

And, to rub salt in the wounds, the 20:52 only has 4 carriages. Last night people were standing when it left London, although I managed to get a seat near the toilet. Luxury. To me this represents a complete breakdown of public control of the train operating companies, because it is completely unnecessary to reduce the train to 4 carriages. The line supports 8. No doubt the train company saves a few pounds, but this must be far exceeded by the cost in passenger inconvenience and discomfort. It seems to me it would be fairly simple to sort this out. Just apply a levy to the ticket revenue for any trains over 70% full. Above this level the passenger experience degrades. You have to sit in seats you don’t want to, couples and groups can’t always sit together and so on.

I simply can’t understand why politicians aren’t falling over each other to propose solutions to the mess that is the UK railways. Don’t they want our votes?

It’s simply a matter of setting the rules to prevent the operating companies short-changing passengers and to give them the right incentives – sticks and carrots – to run the service people want.

I recently commented on and suggested solutions to the traffic problems in my little corner of Cambridge. I was moved last week to attend a public meeting on the issue. I’ll report on that shortly.

First, though, I wanted to give a brief update on one area of lunacy I’ve previously mentioned, namely the taxi-rank in St Andrew’s Street. I can now report that absolutely nothing has changed. Rules clearly don’t apply to the St Andrew’s Street taxi-drivers. Most of the times I’ve looked, the taxis are “over-ranking” by as many as 6 vehicles, forcing buses leaving stops behind the rank to pull out further than necessary into a narrow road, where there are cyclists and pedestrians all over the place.

Worse, behind the taxi-rank there is a natural crossing-point, between Lion’s Yard and the city centre shops and a pedestrian walkway to the Drummer Street bus station and the Grafton Centre. Because a line of taxis now crosses this point, people have to do exactly what you’re taught not to in primary school, that is, cross the road between parked cars. This is dangerous. Especially if you’re in a wheelchair. And that’s what I saw this week – a woman in a wheelchair trying to see over a line of taxis parked on double-yellow lines. On this occasion she didn’t end up under a double-decker bus, but one did come thundering past as she was trying to cross.

But salvation is at hand! A Cambridgeshire Transport Commission has been established. Public meetings are being held. I went to the Cambridge Guildhall on Thursday 19th March, when Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council and the Cambridge Preservation Society gave evidence. I’m not going to give a blow-by-blow account of the meeting, partly because Richard Taylor has already done so (I don’t know Richard, I just came across his blog last week, somehow).

But I’m also restricting myself to a few observations because I rapidly developed a severe headache, not entirely unrelated to what I was listening to. I couldn’t help thinking that, as ever, our decision-making capability is hopelessly compromised by a failure to recognise those two great contradictions in terms: local democracy and the rural economy. We fail to realise that the more local the influence on decision-making, the less democratic it is. And the more economic activity in an area the less rural it is – you can’t have both, you have to make decisions.

So here are my considered reflections on the politicial process to resolve the chronic traffic problems in Cambridge:

1. What public debate?
About the first thing I discovered at the meeting was that the deadline for responses from the public had passed on 13th March. A questionnaire has even been completed, already (see the Transport Commission website).

Interesting. I’d only just heard about the public meetings, yet I missed out on having my say. I know these “public consultation” processes always work like this, but wouldn’t it be better to have some discussion to help people formulate their ideas and then ask them about their views?

By conducting the questionnaire and asking for submissions as a first step the Commission has ensured that it has only gathered data based on uninformed views. OK, the Commission is tasked with a problem that has been around for years, but by taking evidence only before the public meetings, it minimises the amount of fresh thinking it can tap into. And ensured that most influence is wielded by insiders in the political process who are most aware of the timetable. Engagement with members of the general public interested in just this one issue has become a very one-way process.

If I were to make a submission, I’d rather not look totally ignorant, so would have liked to have heard the City Council’s and others’ views before putting finger to keyboard. Tricky when the submission deadline was 13th March and the public meeting 19th March.

2. Cambridge City Council priorities
I say I would have liked to hear Cambridge City Council’s views, but when I did I was shocked. Truly shocked.

Get this: the top priority of Cambridge City Council is climate change, expressed as “reducing carbon emissions”. Now, if I was to decide who should get the contract to solve climate change I wouldn’t award it to Cambridge City Council. It’s the wrong level of government. Are my local councillors going to invent the electric car? Build a Supergrid to bring to the UK renewable electricity generated from Atlantic wind and Sahara sunlight?

So one minute we’re talking about traffic congestion and the next about emission targets. Some exchanges were surreal. Sian Reid, the Transport person on the City Council, tried to convince the head of the Commission, Sir Brian Briscoe, that transport plans should take account of the effect on carbon emissions in the whole region, not just Cambridge City. She was right. It’s daft for Sir Brian to tell everyone just to worry about their own little bit. That is the trap of local democracy, and we’d never get anywhere.

Or rather, Sian Reid would have been right, if we were talking about carbon emissions. But we’re not. We can only include such a discussion in a limited way, as otherwise we have to make sweeping unjustified assumptions. We would not, for example, propose to create a railway running coal-fired steam-trains. But to equate the level of traffic in the city with carbon emissions is absurd. What if people start using electric cars?

My head started hurting at the meeting and it’s hurting again now when I read on Richard Taylor’s blog that:

“The hypothetical question of why not close the city centre car parks to discourage people driving in was raised. It was pointed out this could be ‘done tomorrow’. [Good idea!] Cllr Reid who is responsible for car parks defended them pointing to the new emission based car park charging system which she said would be accepted as people were used to paying their vehicle excise duty on the basis of emissions.”

What on Earth is Sian Reid on about?

The amount of traffic coming into the centre of Cambridge already is a massive problem. And it doesn’t scale. The roads are clogged and we’re expecting more people to want to travel in the region.

Forget carbon emissions. In fact, strike this from the Council’s objectives altogether. Just sort out the transport system.

3. Who’s in charge?
Ah, but we can’t “just sort out the transport system”, because we haven’t yet answered the question “who for?”.

Because we haven’t identified who the transport system is meant to serve, progress is hamstrung.

Human nature being what it is, everyone focuses on the congestion charge proposed as part of any transport improvement. Central government has apparently made the £500m for transport improvements conditional on a congestion charge.

But the purpose of the congestion charge (cc) is unclear. Here are two views:
1. The aim of the cc is to reduce the inconvenience to Cambridge City residents from outsiders coming into the town or driving through it.
2. The aim of the cc is to reduce delays on roads in a crowded part of the county.

The first perspective implies the City Council would have “sovereignty”. They would take responsibility for the commercial success of their constituency. Accordingly, one would expect the congestion charge to cover a zone, requiring payment on entry, with those living inside exempt from payment. If high charges deter shoppers, then so be it. It might actually be better for everyone if there were fewer shops in Cambridge and more in the surrounding area.

The second perspective implies that the transport problems of Cambridge are just a subset of those affecting a larger area. The County Council has “sovereignty”. But then it has to take a broader perspective than just Cambridge. The whole idea of a single congestion charge zone makes little sense.

Instead we have a farcical situation where the County Council has appointed a Transport Commission who are consulting local councils. That was the purpose of the meeting I went to. South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC) were able to announce that they oppose the congestion charge. Indeed, the head of that council explained that, because the buses were so slow, his 17 year old kids had been allowed to drive to Hills Road 6th Form College in Cambridge. Unbelievable. Cambridge University undergraduates aren’t allowed to run cars, but 17 year olds can. Someone should have a word with Hills Road College.

It is lunacy for SCDC to “oppose” the congestion charge or to give them a platform to do so – this statement should have been ruled out of order. SCDC were at the meeting purely to provide a perspective on transport in the Cambridge region, not to take a position on anything. As I’ve explained, the congestion charge must either be the responsibility of Cambridge – at least the majority Lib Dems in favour – or Cambridgeshire – all parties in favour. I know this, because someone wrote to the local paper asking who he was supposed to vote for. Maybe he shouldn’t bother. Maybe he should take the time to ask himself why he thinks he knows better than everyone who’s looked into the issue properly.

SCDC residents can only influence transport in Cambridge through their County Councillors, not their local Councillors. It is ludicrous for SCDC to have a “position” on the congestion charge (unless it extrends into South Cambs of course).

Personally I think it would be far preferable if Cambridge City Council took decisions on transport in Cambridge. Because the wider constituency represented by the County Council has the final say, we are drifting towards a vision of Cambridge as there to provide a service to the surrounding area. It is turning into a giant shopping centre. It would be preferable to tweak the political system to shift the balance so that transport and other planning in Cambridge reflects the needs of residents of the city rather more and the needs of those living elsewhere in the county a little less.

4. Strategy, what strategy?
Because we haven’t decided who the transport system is for, we have no clearly defined objectives.

One might have expected the Transport Commission to start out by identifying objectives. Every project I’ve ever been involved with has started with some kind of high-level statement of requirements. But when it comes to the future of Cambridge’s transport system, we go straight to arguing about the – at this stage hypothetical – congestion charge and who would be exempt from it.

What Sir Brian and Professor Tony might more profitably have done was:
1. Identify the objectives of the exercise.
2. Validate these with the public.
3. Produce some (internally consistent) options for meeting the objectives, based on something resembling logical reasoning.
4. Consult the now better informed public again.
5. Select one of the options.

Instead we have had uninformed public comment – many saying “no congestion charge” rather than addressing a complete solution – and will no doubt end up with an incoherent strategy.

Let me suggest what some of the objectives might have been, reconciling the interests of Cambridge residents and those from the surrounding area:
1. Reduce the usage of Cambridge City Centre (inside the inner ring road) by motor vehicles.
2. Ensure inexpensive, efficient transport options exist to support the needs of an increasing population in the Greater Cambridge area.
3. Minimise delays to traffic using designated through-routes.

A strategy could then be devised to meet these objectives. This stage should be the province of professionals. It requires objective reasoning, not subjective opinion. For example, the Commission might use the concepts of “limiting factors”, “efficiency” and “incentives”.

They might conclude that cost is not the limiting factor determining whether people drive into Cambridge or not. Any congestion charge would therefore likely have to be very high to be effective. No, the limiting factor for many journeys is surely the availability of parking. So, to meet objective no. 1, reduce traffic coming into the centre of Cambridge, we could close the Grand Arcade car-park. We could convert some of the railway station car-park into cycle parking. And we could tell Hills Road 6th Form College it is not acceptable for their students to drive into Cambridge.

The limiting factor for many journeys across Cambridge is very likely the existence of routes. If we don’t allow people to take short-cuts by leaving designated through-routes, then people will have to stick to the main roads.

Another limiting factor affecting cyclists (and even pedestrians) is the available space. There are too few cycle lanes and even pavements are congested in some parts of Cambridge! To achieve a modal shift away from cars, more cycle lanes and wider pavements are required.

Once some of the limiting factors have been addressed, the Commission should start to look at the efficiency of the system.

This will likely mean far more one-way streets. It is ludicrous, for example, that buses travel both ways, not only along Regent Street, but also along Emmanuel Road into the Drummer Street bus station.

But ultimately the Commission needs to consider the geography of Cambridge, with a busy centre confined on 3 sides by the river Cam and historic buildings. The obvious solution is for the main transport interchange to be located at the railway station (perhaps with a similar arrangement at Chesterton), with a high-capacity, high-frequency shuttle service – preferably a metro train in a tunnel, an elevated monorail or even the dreaded pods – between there and the town centre. We need to be prepared to invest in such a scheme. The Commission should not rely on vested interests, such as the bus company, but on its own reasoning.

Closing car-parks, closing minor roads to through-traffic and improving the design of the system will all help, but to meet objective 3, to minimise delays, we have to look at incentives. And now, finally, we have to consider a congestion charge. But what we’re left with are the busy routes around Cambridge and elsewhere in the county. Surely, rather than a zone, the charge should be levied purely on those using particular roads that are exceeding their capacity, causing delays for everyone? For example, a charge on the inner ring road would push some through traffic onto trunk routes. If some of these roads are too busy, a lower charge could be levied on them, moving some traffic onto public transport, or to travel at less busy times.

To sell a congestion charge to the public it must be presented as precisely targeted on busy routes. People need to be very clear what they’re buying. Rather than a zone, it would be far better to charge a fee for each busy road used – Gonville Place, East Road, Newmarket Road say – with a daily cap. And any talk of carbon emissions should be taken out of the discussion. Global warming is a different issue to traffic congestion.

5. Joined up thinking
It is impossible to separate traffic policy from housing and other planning policy. The head of SCDC pointed out at the meeting that Cambridge residents are on average 400 metres from their nearest bus-stop, but that this rises to 1000 metres in South Cambs. Look, the greater the housing density, the more customers there are for public transport (and for specialist local shops and small supermarkets!). It was refreshing to read today that someone is actually spelling this out. Here’s what Centre for Cities have to say:

“All cities are different. However, denser cities can be more efficient and more sustainable. Research has shown that denser cities around the world have a lower private transport energy use per capita. Private transport energy use in Boston, for example, which has an average urban density of 12.5 persons per hectare, was 50,000 per capita in 1990; while in Hamburg it was 20,000 per capita (37.5 persons per hectare) and around 3,000 per capita in Hong Kong (300 persons per hectare).

Growing through densification rather than urban sprawl therefore has the potential to make transport in Cambridge more sustainable, as more residents are able to walk or cycle to work.” (my stress)

Supermarket sensation!

I had no idea local politics could be so interesting. It seems like only a fortnight ago that I mentioned the campaign against the Mill Road Tesco store:

“…the anti-Mill Road Tesco campaign … will be counter-productive as the specialist food-stores, cafes and so on on Mill Road – which does have character – would gain more from passing trade to and from Tesco than they would lose to the new competition.”

Imagine my surprise to read in the Cambridge Evening News (CEN) a couple of days ago of “traders coming out in favour of the store”. CEN reports that:

“The fight against the Say No to Mill Road Tesco campaign will see a petition launched today by traders supporting the supermarket giant.

Joyce Charles, one of the petition organisers, who owns Rollers hair salon in the Broadway, Mill Road, criticised the anti-Tesco campaigners.

Mrs Charles, who has owned the shop for 23 years and has the backing of other traders, said a growing number had had enough of the campaigners.

Other shops with petitions include Cambridge Resale, Greg’s Cycles, Halls Locksmith and the RSPCA shop.

Mrs Charles said: ‘We need Tesco to bring a bit of life to the street. In just a few hours we have had 23 signatures in our shop. …

‘These protesters are killing business in the street and putting people off setting up shop here. I have started to see more empty shops appearing and the protest has just made things worse.

‘As a hairdresser, I talk to many people and have found that those who actually live and work around here want Tesco. Why shouldn’t we have a choice? Many of these protesters are just against Tesco.

‘They are not thinking of Mill Road. They have painted the empty store and it looks awful.

‘Businesses won’t come here now because they are afraid they could be targeted next.’ “

I’ll be rushing down there to sign the petition!

And the excitement doesn’t stop there! There’s yet another plan for a supermarket in Cambridge. I’d be very interested to find out which chain this is – we should probably have a Lidl, Aldi or Morrison’s before another Tesco, on competition grounds. Otherwise, though, I’m afraid to say it seems to me that the local politicians are trying to outdo each other in objecting to these schemes – it’s very easy to say “we don’t need another supermarket”. CEN quotes Belinda Brooks-Gordon as saying about the proposed supermarket:

“It would bring with it giant delivery lorries travelling through our streets.

It could also attract hundreds of shoppers from the north and west of Cambridge, who could converge on this area.

The extra traffic it could generate would be disastrous.

It is imperative that we act now to stop these plans getting the go-ahead.

I would urge everyone to get behind this campaign.”

I can see downsides to a supermarket off Madingley Road, but I can also see benefits. The concern, of course, is indeed traffic. I’m sceptical though that a new supermarket would generate “extra traffic” – the potential customers must be buying their food somewhere already! And surely traffic is minimised by having as many supermarkets as possible so that journeys to supermarkets are as short as possible. The “hundreds of shoppers from the north and west of Cambridge, who could converge on this area” must be buying their food somewhere at the moment, many non-drivers likely at the dreaded City Centre Sainsbury’s, so will have another choice, which may require less travel. Those who drive to the supermarket may have less of a journey than to the Newmarket Road Asda and Tesco.

Similarly, a new store in itself can’t generate more delivery traffic. Unless the residents of Cambridge eat more because of the new store, the same amount of food must be being transported.

I’m a little more concerned that the store is envisaged to be the “biggest supermarket in the city”. Perhaps the proposed store represents another step towards Cambridge turning into a massive shopping centre for the surrounding area. But if this creates traffic problems these should be managed by traffic solutions. Otherwise, if we are making a value judgement, we should be asking whether it is a valid one. Surely if people want to shop in a huge supermarket, they should be given that choice. Maybe it’s efficient. If people don’t have time to do more than one weekly shop by car (I’m thinking of the thousands of families I see with trolleys piled high at Asda or Tesco when I occasionally venture a trip to Newmarket Road of a weekend), should we really be making life more difficult for them? Especially if we simply nudge them into driving further to another supermarket on the already clogged streets of Cambridge and the surrounding area.

On the other hand, there are clearly systemic reasons why large edge-of-town stores are so dominant. But some of these are under the control of local councils. Because it is even more difficult to get planning permission for local stores than for out of town supermarkets, the market allows landlords to charge much higher rents in town centres and residential areas. Sure, scale economies – which are a fact of life – and buyer power – which should be constrained – give large supermarkets an advantage, but I suspect a major competitive disadvantage for local, specialist food stores is the high cost of commercial property. And councils could reduce these by being more willing to give planning permission. In other words, in trying to stop massive edge-of-town supermarkets, councils are addressing a problem they themselves are responsible for creating!

It seems to me that using the planning system to constrain shopping choices is the wrong way to address the problem – if, indeed, there is one – and that it would be far better to grant planning permission much more readily, bringing shop-keepers’ costs down and allowing people more choice in where to shop. If people don’t want to use large out-of-town supermarkets, they’ll simply lose money and close down.

—
Taxi trauma!

But that’s not it for the excitement in Cambridge just now!! In a sensational move, the police actually arrested a taxi-driver! CEN writes:

“The driver was parked at the end of a row of six cabs on Thursday on a six-space rank in [St Andrew's] street, which has become a flashpoint for the battle.”

But the story actually seems to be that if the driver had simply obeyed a police officer the arrest would never have occurred. Though I suppose – since, amazingly enough, it’s not just me, and according to the CEN, there have been “calls from the public” about the rank – the police would have had to take some action eventually, since, as I observed, taxis have simply been returning to the rank as soon as the coast was clear.

I’ve nothing against taxi-drivers. I have a lot of sympathy, since it’s obvious what’s happening. The problem is that taxis are the coal-mine canaries of the recession. There’s an incredible (and often remarked upon) feedback loop. People are less willing to drop a tenner on a taxi-fare, more taxis end up waiting at the ranks, meaning drivers have to work longer for the same return, leading to even longer queues… And that’s before even factoring in those drivers who have lost another source of income because of the recession, so need more income from fares anyway.

But as I’ve already pointed out, the taxi-drivers at the St Andrew’s Street rank are simply taking the piss. It’s not clear from the picture in the CEN article, but there are a number of bus-stops behind the taxis waiting on double-yellows. Quiet apart from clogging the street up, buses have to manoeuvre awkwardly round the taxis at the back of the queue. I’ve even seen taxis blocking bus-stops!

So now a situation has developed:

“Pc Steve Hinks, who is carrying out the sweep on taxis after calls from the public, says he and his officers have had abuse hurled at them by angry cabbies.

But cabbies criticised the ‘overzealous’ officers, saying the row was ‘the beginning of the end of a good relationship’. [what, one where the police don't do their job?]

Now furious cabbies are threatening to turn Friday and Saturday nights in the city centre into mayhem by refusing to take drunks away from trouble hotspots.

And some are even talking about strike action or a blockade of the city.”

To be honest, the drivers need to calm down a bit. Threatening to create mayhem when it exists already seems more than a little hollow. Besides, I suspect they make a lot of their money on Friday and Saturday nights since there’s no public transport to take people out of the City Centre. They probably get a fair few £25 fares to villages and small towns all over Cambridgeshire, and are no doubt earning all the time, because they don’t have to queue for fares. Otherwise, given they choose their own hours, drivers simply wouldn’t work the party-shift.

The solution, of course, as I pointed out before is for the St Andrew’s Street taxi rank to be closed. People should walk – sorry, I know this is a novel concept for many – 100 metres to the Drummer Street rank, which appears to be redundant at the moment. There simply isn’t space for 6 taxis in St Andrew’s Street, let alone the 12 who are often there.

Transport is a big topic in Cambridge these days. The County Council (don’t ask why transport in the City is not the responsibility of the City Council) is pondering whether or not to agree to introduce a congestion charge in return for £500m from central government for transport improvements. A no-brainer if you ask me.

Even with half a billion, though, the problems aren’t easy to solve, as rather too many people think they have a right to drive on the cramped medieval streets in the centre of Cambridge. Weird and wacky ideas are therefore being floated.

I don’t think the principal problem is a lack of money, nor that cutting-edge technology is the whole solution. What’s lacking is a clear strategy. Joined-up thinking has clearly been continually thwarted over the years by a political system (first past the post in small council wards) that favours those who pander most effectively to local interest groups; by bizarre and unclear divisions of responsibility between different levels of government; perhaps by a lack of political courage; but above all by an electorate with an astonishing belief in its own entitlement to do exactly what it wants whenever it feels like it, regardless of the effect on everyone else.

Before spending £500m, what is needed is simply determination to minimise traffic in the centre of Cambridge. Without this, the money will make no difference.

Consider the area which I use as a pedestrian on a daily basis, as shown in the map below:

View Larger Map

1. Close the Lion Yard car-park

Top left is Lion Yard, a covered shopping mall, recently extended in a project known as the Grand Arcade. There are a lot of shops in the centre of Cambridge now, a few hundred yards from one of the nation’s most historic buildings, King’s College Chapel. It is no longer practical for all shoppers to drive right into the centre, so Cambridge is ringed by Park’n'Ride carparks, subsidised by those of us who never use them, incidentally. So why, oh why, are some shoppers allowed to park in the new multi-story Lion Yard carpark?

I was showing someone around Cambridge last weekend, as I often do. We walked along Downing Street and Pembroke Street (not labelled on the map, but below Lion Yard, where the legend “University of Cambridge” appears), towards the Fitzwilliam Museum on Trumpington Street, looking around the area where DNA was discovered, not to mention the electron. But, spoiling the ambience and spewing fumes in this historic part of Cambridge was a slow-moving line of traffic heading north along Trumpington Street, turning right to head west along Pembroke Street, into and later out of the Lion Yard car-park, emerging to continue west along Downing Street, before causing a nuisance turning right at the newly installed traffic lights into St Andrew’s Street.

In our new mood of determination, the Lion Yard carpark should simply be closed. Build some flats instead. The shoppers and others using the Lion Yard car-park would then have to use the Park’n'Ride car-parks instead, improving the economics of the Park’n'Ride service.

But let’s see how much further we can get with our new mood of determination.

2. Close Park Terrace

Look again at the map. Just right of centre 4 roads form a tilted square: Gonville Place, Regent Street, Park Terrace and Parkside. Inside this square is Parker’s Piece, which I walk across or around (depending on the weather) nearly every day, from the end of Gresham Road (where there’s an infamous pedestrian and cycle crossing – more about that another time).

One reason for writing this post was to play around a bit with Google Maps! (Anyone know how to get rid of the annoying drawing-pin symbol, by the way?). What I’ve learnt is that there’s resistance somewhere to embedding two maps in one post. I therefore urge readers to switch between satellite mode and map mode to follow my description – the map simplifies matters a little too much.

The mess is in the north-west corner (top left) of Parker’s Piece. Heading north into town, you first encounter cyclists heading in all directions: crossing Parker’s Piece diagonally; turning left and right from Regent Street where there is a cramped dual-use crossing – that is, one for both cyclists and pedestrians, who trip over each other trying to reach the other side of the road before the lights change; heading both ways down the road on the left (Regent Terrace) behind the row of shops, restaurants and pubs fronting onto Regent Street; and – remember this point – heading east-north-east along the side of Parker’s Piece. These cyclists are not, as may be clearer in the satellite photo than the map, cycling along Park Terrace, which is actually the other side of the University Arms hotel.

At this point too, the pedestrian flow crossing Parker’s piece becomes a mere tributary. On Regent Street, you join a mass of often large groups, many from overseas, for you are now on the main route from Cambridge Railway Station into town.

After negotiating the melee at the corner of Parker’s Piece, the intrepid pedestrian has to keep their wits about them. The next hazard is the University Arms hotel car-park, which for reasons lost in the mists of time spews Sunday drivers up [23/3 CORRECTION: down, doesn't memory play tricks on you?] a steep ramp across the busy Regent Street pavement. A lack of clutch control, or any other sign of the driver being fully in control of their vehicle, is often evident, so the wise pedestrian stays alert.

Barring major engineering works, the exit to the University Arms hotel is likely to remain in Regent Street. But this is a minor inconvenience compared to the next hazard – the dreaded Park Terrace.

As you cross Park Terrace, both cars and buses swing into the road, from both directions along Regent Street (Park Terrace itself is one-way). None appear to realise that they should be giving way to pedestrians.

Today I had the temerity to glare at a driver who swung round the corner as I was already crossing the road. What drivers fail to realise is that pedestrians do not share their knowledge of the precise trajectory their car will follow as it turns, nor indeed the same faith in the grip of their tyres, nor knowledge of the state of their brakes, nor, it has to be said, the same confidence in the skill and concentration of the person at the wheel. What the pedestrian experiences is a threat of serious harm if they should slow – or speed up, depending on where the car passes – their pace crossing the road, or, in the worst cases, if they fail to slow or speed up their pace. In short, the driver may know he’s not going to hit the pedestrian, but the pedestrian doesn’t know this. The pedestrian’s experience is simply of being on the receiving end of a form of intimidation. Hence the glare.

Believe it or not, today the driver actually stopped to discuss the issue! I should have studied sociology – hey, what am I saying?, I did study sociology! – because I felt this was a great opportunity to find something out. So when he pulled up I went and had a chat. And, sure enough, the driver, if I interpret his words correctly, felt he could not possibly be in the wrong, as he was on a road, and I was not another vehicle!

Now, later this afternoon, I pondered the Park Terrace phenomenon. I don’t drive with such aggression – well, only to other drivers, who of course deserve it, not to pedestrians – and am treated on average far more politely at other junctions. In fact, the buses using Park Terrace are noticeably more considerate than the cars, even allowing for the fact that sudden stops are not quite so easy for them. Heck, some of the buses even signal! Of course, I’m more considerate to the buses too – more prepared to step back onto the pavement to allow them to turn – not just because they are even more intimidating than cars, but also because I feel a few seconds of my time is outweighed by that of 20 passengers and a driver.

Pondering away, I developed a hypothesis – it’s Cambridge, after all. My hypothesis is this: the users of Park Terrace are mostly taking a short-cut.

The driver who didn’t care enough, for my liking, whether or not he took me out while I was crossing Park Terrace, was turning left. At the other end of Park Terrace (see map), most cars, I’ve noticed, turn right onto Parkside, and then likely left into East Road or straight on into Mill Road. One point is that there are few other places to go: straight on leads to a residential area with no exit (theoretically – it seems some anti-social drivers ignore various no thru road signs, weave through back-streets and emerge on East Road at Dover Street, no doubt very pleased at saving themselves time at the expense of other drivers and local residents). So drivers turning left into Park Terrace are mostly avoiding the traffic jam (and two pedestrian crossings) along Gonville Place. They are in the rush, rush, rush state of mind. They are not those who, I’ve read, treat car journeys, such as the daily commute, as quality time, an opportunity to relax between the stresses of work and the pressures of family life.

[23/3 NOTE: It turns out to my surprise that drivers can also turn left at the end of Park Terrace, drive round into Emmanuel Street, right into the pedestrian zone of St Andrew's Street and then to King Street and Jesus Lane via Hobson Street. [26/3 CORRECTION: Sorry, this traffic doesn't enter the formal pedestrian zone, rather it bears right into Hobson Street just before where a gate blocks St Andrew's Street at some times of day, but it does add to the buses and taxis congesting an area where there are a lot of pedestrians, many crossing St Andrews Street where there is a passage leading to the bus station and the Grafton Centre.] I suspect traffic is entering Regent Street at the Lensfield Road/Gonville Place junction in order to take this route, avoiding having to use East Road and Maid’s Causeway. The same argument applies: if we want a pleasant city centre for the benefit of a large number of people, we should simply stop being so kind to a small number of motorists!].

No, the reason Park Terrace is such a pain to cross is that its being used selectively by those who are trying to save their own precious minutes. Close it, I say. We have designated which are the main roads. Why should a few avoid the queues on them, in the process slowing people down when they slot back in to the traffic procession in advance of where they left it?

If Park Terrace were closed to traffic at the Regent Street end it could be used as a two-way cycle route, though minimal residents’ traffic would still have to be permitted, thereby relieving the Parker’s Piece melee 20 metres south along Regent Street.

Potentially, too, a new exit from the University Arms underground car-park could be constructed into Park Terrace (to exit to the east). This would add little to the residents’ traffic along Park Terrace.

3. Close Regent Terrace

If you think Park Terrace is a joke, you won’t believe Regent Terrace. Regent Terrace is on the west side of Parker’s Piece, a cul de sac behind the buildings on that side of the park. Like Park Terrace, Regent Terrace is an access road that just happens to be there. It wasn’t created for the purpose to which it is being put.

And Regent Terrace – no more than 150 yards from the Queen Anne multi-story on Gonville Place – is being used for parking. Completely unsegregated cyclists and pedestrians (especially when Parker’s Piece is muddy) compete for road space with cars cruising the narrow street looking for a parking space. Ludicrously, cars have to turn round at Melee Corner. And, for much of Regent Terrace’s length, there is no room for two cars to pass. I’ve seen arguments break out over who should reverse – once with a woman (sorry, I’m afraid it simply was a woman, saying “person” would seem a little odd) nearly in tears, refusing to reverse, despite several cars in front of her coming the other way, for fear of scraping her car.

Regent Terrace should simply be closed to all except residents. The parking places are more trouble than they’re worth and should all be removed, allowing a pedestrian path and cycle lanes to be marked.

4. On the buses

Where are the buses going to go, I hear you ask, now that I’ve closed Park Terrace?

Why are the buses using Park Terrace in the first place? I retort.

At this point it might be worth listing some of the interacting traffic problems in the centre of Cambridge:
- too many private cars;
- too many buses;
- too many taxis;
- lack of cycle lanes;
- cyclists using the pavement endangering pedestrians and themselves;
- dangers to pedestrians who risk being hit by traffic when spilling off narrow, overcrowded pavements and from bus wing mirrors even whilst on the pavements.

So far we’ve addressed the private cars and provided new quiet routes for cyclists along the north (Park Terrace) and west (Regent Terrace) sides of Parker’s Piece.

What we really need to do with the buses is keep most of them out of centre of Cambridge, which is too cramped for London-style double-deckers. We could do this simply by creating a decent bus terminus at the railway station (not just a few more stops), in place of some of the acres of car-parking there, and building a high-capacity transport link from the station to the centre of town – a monorail, an underground rail link, or even the Heathrow-style pods that have been proposed.

But, even without such major improvements we can make a big difference in one fell swoop. Why don’t we simply create a one-way route for buses (and all other motorised vehicles)? The bus station, such as it is, is in Drummer Street (at the east end of Emmanuel Street, see map), and, controversially, National Express coaches wait on Parkside (space should be made for them at the central railway station, which would then operate as a more effective transport interchange). A one-way loop, (either way) could be created from Emmanuel Street, along St Andrew’s Street, Regent Street, Gonville Place, Parkside and Drummer Street, back to Emmanuel Street. Simple.

The advantage of creating a one-way loop for buses and all other vehicles would be to create space for cycle lanes in both directions, and wider pavements, on all these roads – but especially Regent Street.

People will object to making Gonville Place one-way, because it is part of a major east-west route, but I say: bite the bullet! Traffic is stationary in Gonville Place much of the time, simply waiting for the lights at either end (often blocking the pedestrian crossing at the end of Gresham Road – but it’s hardly news that so few these days know how to drive with the courtesies laid down in the Highway Code, is it?). Simplifying the traffic sequence at these junctions would speed up the traffic flow. OK, traffic in one direction would have be diverted some way round, but remember what we’re trying to do. We’re determined to minimise traffic in the centre of Cambridge.

5. Taxi, taxi

There have always been a lot of taxis in Cambridge, but now that there’s a recession on it’s like Moscow in the early 1990s, except that the Cambridge taxis don’t double as currency bureaux and kiosks for black-market goods.

Now, I’ve nothing against taxis, but they should be for the occasional difficult trip. They are not an alternative to buses. They are an incredibly inefficient form of transport, using more fuel and road space per journey than private cars – because the vehicle is empty when it returns to a rank or goes to the next pick-up. Why then, are taxis given such privileges?

In Cambridge, taxis can go everywhere buses go, not just to make pick-ups or drop-offs that would be impossible otherwise, but en route. There are certain roads – for example, Sidney Street and St John’s Street (scroll up on the map and, because these streets are so small, zoom in) – where people walk in the road and have to jump back onto the pavement when a taxi wants to pass through. This is madness. Inconveniencing dozens for one passenger makes no sense. Unless picking up or dropping off where private cars can’t go, taxis should have no more rights to drive through Cambridge than you or I.

And the siting of taxi ranks is hilarious. There’s one for 6 vehicles in St Andrew’s Street in the absolute busiest part of town, where space is at a huge premium. Today I noticed about a dozen taxis queuing back past the rank and a couple of community police officers moving them on. As soon as the police left, the queue was back, of course, causing a nuisance. Yet round the corner in Drummer Street, the rank next to the bus station was empty. Totally unused space. Just get rid of the rank in St Andrew’s Street and put a sign up pointing to where taxis can be found.

Incidentally, I once read that pollution levels along Regent Street and St Andrew’s Street are extraordinarily high. Funny, that.

6. Take pedestrians seriously

If we are determined to give cyclists and pedestrians priority over cars – and remember, this is our policy – then give cyclists and pedestrians priority over cars. I must have spent hours waiting, for example, to cross Gonville Place at the crossing at the end of Gresham Road. I stand there watching cars either edging along in a jam (often stopping on the crossing – please, please send a traffic cop to book them, even if it’s just the once!) in one or (better, because you can sometimes nip across) both directions. Now, if the lights have been green to traffic for even 10 seconds, switch immediately to pedestrians and cyclists. The same no-brainers occur all over town.

So, various tiers of government, if we’re going to have a transport strategy for Cambridge, let’s have one that makes sense. We want to use the space as efficiently as possible. That means minimising the traffic in the centre of town. And if we want to minimise traffic in the centre of Cambridge, then that’s what has to be done. Don’t fudge the policy by sticking car-parks where some people would like you to do that; don’t leave sneaky little short-cuts and parking places for drivers in the know; create a sensible traffic circulation even if people whinge; don’t kow-tow to lobbies, such as the taxi-drivers; don’t try to cater to a minority at the expense of anyone else (even bus users – take those stupid stops outside John Lewis, you know, where the queues block the pavement, and put them in Drummer Street); and, above all, make life as easy as possible for pedestrians and cyclists, because they’re exhibiting the behaviour you’re trying to encourage.

You can’t keep everyone happy all the time. And if you keep trying to do so, you’ll end up making someone very unhappy indeed. For example, in this small part of Cambridge I’ve focused on, which I know intimately, cyclists have taken to using the pavements – because space hasn’t been allocated to them in the form of cycle lanes (or they can’t be bothered to sort lights). Cyclists often travel at high-speed on the pavement. It’s only a matter of time someone – likely frail and elderly – is seriously injured. Or worse.

I love the polls that, every day or so, appear on the Cambridge Evening News (CEN) website.  Some seem designed to elicit a particular answer – one can hardly be surprised, for example, that 96.5% of 1552 respondents answer the question: “Can Cambridge sustain a population the size of Manchester?” in the negative. Perhaps the findings would have been a little different if they’d asked: “Do you think Cambridge could grow to be larger than Manchester by late in the 21st century?”

Other questions do seem to tap the wisdom of crowds. The 28.9% of 724 who selected the option “Bin bag” to the question “What is the Fen tiger?” may well have a point.

And “Would you use an Oxford to Cambridge rail link?” (63.9% of 781 say “Yes”), may well belong in a category of legitimate market research.

After my rant about the cost of a Day Return train ticket to London, I was pleased to see the CEN asking the public: “How much do you think an off-peak return train ticket from Cambridge to London should cost?” It’s not a brilliant question since, not only does it fail to make clear whether it is asking about a Day Return or (the more expensive) normal return, most passengers also pay less than the full price – my £13.20 was the full off-peak fare discounted by 34% with a Network card (£20). Infrequent and/or non-student, adult but not Senior passengers without a discount card would pay exactly £20. Obviously, if you have a discount card, its cost has to be spread over all the journeys you make in a year. It’s a shame CEN didn’t sacrifice simplicity for a little more clarity and add “for regular travellers with a Senior, Student or Network discount card” to their question.

Nevertheless, the CEN poll results imply that, based on a sample of 930 people, the Cambridge public believes it is being seriously overcharged: a large minority (42.4%) believe the cost of an off-peak day-trip to London should be £10, and only around a third (35.1%) think it should be more than a tenner. Of those 35.1%, 24.7% believe the price should be only £15. Since £15 is around the minimum you can pay, taking the cost of a discount card into account, it’s likely all but 8.4% of respondents to CEN’s poll believe they are being charged.

I wonder how many of those who answered CEN’s question believe, like I do, that the route is highly profitable, and that these profits are largely being used to subsidise the rail network in other parts of the country?

In case my Martian readers are online today, I should describe the background state of affairs: the UK has not only screwed up its trains, the dental service has also been seriously dysfunctional since at least the 1990s.  The main problem tooth-wise is expense, since the NHS service we all pay our taxes for is chronically under-resourced – dentists aren’t paid enough for NHS patients, so have taken their drills to the private market. Nowadays, when a new dentist announces they’re taking on NHS patients, it’s like when fresh fruit arrived in the north of the Soviet Union.  People drop everything and queue.

Obviously, we’d all be better off without the NHS provision (not that I actually advocate this solution, I’m just making a point), now, since not only would our taxes be lower, the (lower end of the market) private prices are elevated by the fact that some people have managed to keep themselves on an NHS dentist’s list (though a significant number of people resort to the use of pliers for self-extraction).  Come to think of it, it’s a similar type of screw-up to the housing market, really.  I was removed by my previous dentist from his list in around 1998, for not going often enough!  I had a couple of extremely painful experiences at the next dentist I tried (on the second occasion she still hadn’t found the nerve after 5 local anaesthetic injections).  Once I found a good dentist, then, naturally, I stuck with him, even after I’d moved away from the area.  And, no, I’m not telling all and sundry who he is!

So this morning I rose bright and early (actually I could have had a lie in, because, as will become clear, it’s better to wait until the commuters have left the city), brushed, flossed, rinsed and made my way to Cambridge Station in good time to catch the 10:20 to London, the first train for which you can buy the cheapest tickets.  I stress that I arrived at the station in good time, since the queue for tickets at either machine or desk, was (as I’d expected) a good 5 minutes.  I mention this – it’s usual at Cambridge Station at many times of the week, with a minimum of a 5 minute waste of time to be expected on Saturday mornings and Friday afternoons, as well as, it seems, for the first cheap train of the day – because I’ve just had a look at the latest Passenger Focus report on value for money(!) on the UK’s trains.

Section 9, p.20 of the report suggests passengers should not have to queue for more than 3 minutes off-peak, 5 peak.  I can’t help noting that the peak/off-peak times make no sense for ticket sales, since most peak-time travellers are commuters with season tickets, so don’t need to buy a ticket.  Perhaps this explains what is evident at a glance from the Passenger Focus report, that the 3 minute off-peak target is achieved much less often than the 5 minute peak-time target.  The data looks a bit – how do I put it? – stupid.  I suggest they just have one target, 3 minutes.  And bring in some fines to make sure 3 minutes is actually achieved.  But what is also needed, it seems to me, is an edict that machines should be added to stations until there are no queues at them (as is the case in some European stations I know, den Haag Centraal, for instance).  Today, I used the multi-queue for the ticket desks at Cambridge Station (6 desks now, I acknowledge, in a rare, but insufficient improvement).  The point is, if you have to queue for a machine, you may wait for a long time behind someone having difficulty with the options (it’s not surprising that this happens, maybe some design of the screens is called for – just perhaps?), or the bloody thing may refuse your card.  And whatever you do, buy any complicated tickets from a real person at the counter!  The cost of the machines must be small compared to the value of the time passengers spend queuing.  And the marginal cost of each extra machine is even smaller – the cost to produce them is surely (like for other manufactures) mostly attributable to design, software, and tooling up for manufacture.  Queuing for machines!  They wouldn’t have believed you 50 years ago – it’s like a science fiction dystopia!  If there’s no queue, people will at least try to use a machine rather than what is the most expensive resource – the human ticket-seller.

Actually, I don’t think it’s cost that explains why there are uniformly too few machines in railway stations in the UK.  I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t too difficult (or at least too much hassle) to deal with the inevitable consequence – a reduction in the number of ticket-counter staff – because of the militant RMT and other unions.

What I really wanted to write about (as I said before, you could write an essay about every train journey in the UK), though, is the exorbitant cost of the journey.  I used to buy One-day Travelcards – which include use of the tube and buses – when travelling to London, for the flexibility.  But, partly because of the new restriction that you cannot use the return portion of Off-peak (i.e. reasonably priced) tickets between 16:30 and 19:00 (though, unbelievably, if you buy a cheap ticket from London to Cambridge, you can use it at these times!), I now usually just buy returns to London, rush back rather than spend an hour or two in a museum or whatever, and use an Oyster card whilst there.

The last Off-peak Travelcard I bought from Cambridge to London (via King’s Cross) cost me £11.90.  But that was in 2008.  Today the price was £13.20, a 10.9% increase!  Frankly, this is getting ridiculous, as I’ll explain.

But first, let’s compare like with like.  Some years ago I wrote to Douglas Alexander, then Transport Secretary (there’ve been a few since then – does that tell you anything?), noting the rise in price of One-Day Off-peak Travelcards (with Network Card discount) from Cambridge to London.  I can now extend the series:

2003     £11.55

2004     £12.60     9.1% increase on previous year

2005     £13.85     9.9%

2006     £14.85     7.2%

2007     £15.20     2.4% (presumably lower because of the new afternoon restrictions)

2008     £15.85     4.3% (lulling us into a false sense of security)

2009     £17.50     10.4% (out of the blue – it’s a record!!)

Overall, in 6 years the ticket-price has risen by 51.5%!

In comparison, the ONS provides the latest RPI figure – 210.1 for January 2009.  It was 181.3 in January 2003 (I downloaded the table a while back).  That is, prices in general have only increased by 15.9%. The difference – 51.5% versus 15.9% – is, frankly, ridiculous.

That’s right.  Prices in general (RPI) have risen by 15.9%.  The train ticket I’ve relied on since I moved to Cambridge has gone up by 51.5%.  And the service has been seriously degraded by the introduction of the draconian restriction on when you can use the ticket to travel back to Cambridge – you have to return either too early to do anything in London in the afternoon, or too late to do anything in Cambridge in the evening (like eat at home at a normal time).

What really pisses me off, though, is that I think I know the reason for this injustice (besides RMT members’ belief that they have a God-given right to earn more than their work would merit in a different environment).  The point is that the franchise system in the UK works by awarding monopoly pricing power to the highest bidder.  The price to the franchisee in some regions is negative (i.e. some routes are subsidised), but for the franchise that includes Cambridge it is in the tens of millions of pounds per year (there’s no way to determine the value of the Cambridge route, and therein lies part of the problem).  The cost of the ticket therefore bears no relation to the cost of providing the service. This is a crime.  There is no mechanism – tragically, as there is even competition from Cambridge, you can travel a little more cheaply to Liverpool Street, though that happens to be usually way out of my way – for supply and demand to determine the correct price for the route.

The Passenger Focus report notes that the cost of tickets into London is higher than to other cities in the UK, yet there are more frequent services.  I found no real discussion of why this should be the case.  Have these people never heard of economies of scale?  If the market were functioning correctly (so that comparative prices reflect comparative costs), prices for travel into London would in all likelihood be considerably lower than to other cities.  Passengers in the busiest parts of the network are massively subsidising those in other areas.

The reason train travel into London is so expensive is, I suggest, because the market will stand it.  The train price reflects the cost (in money and time) of the alternatives.  Only the nobility can really afford to drive into London: you have to be stupidly brave, wealthy and have a lot of time on your hands.

The tragedy is, the rail network should be allowed to expand in the areas where a profit can be made.  There should be even more (e.g. fast, late night, early morning, every 15 minutes, not 30) services between Cambridge and London.  If parts of the network were allowed to grow, then, over time, the network as a whole would become more profitable.  The franchise system and consequent monopoly-pricing of rail tickets is one factor preventing the growth and modernisation of the UK railways.

As I said, it’s a crime.

I’ve skimmed through most of the latest Passenger Focus report.  There’s not a mention of the effect of the deeply flawed franchise system on ticket-pricing and hence value for money.  In fact, it reads like internal company market-research.  But of course, that’s what you’d expect from an organisation that appears to have no true independence from government.

Rather than sponsoring this flannel, the DfT should be getting its teeth into the task of making the rail franchise system work for passengers.

When someone says, literally, or in effect: “Listen to me, I’m a Professor”, be suspicious, very suspicious.  Because the truth is, Professors are just as likely as the rest of us to spout misleading garbage.  But their gibberish is more likely to be published, simply because the average editor thinks: “Letter from a Professor – must be worth a column inch or two!”  If you’re told it was written by a Professor, the chances are therefore higher than otherwise that what you are reading is poorly thought-through drivel.  Furthermore, having their output published more often provides the said Professors with the positive reinforcement that encourages them to submit for publication more material in the same vein as the rubbish that shouldn’t have been published in the first place.

I was therefore immediately sceptical when I read the last of an interesting clutch of letters in this morning’s Guardian on the topic of the UK’s procurement of new trains.  A Professor Lewis Lesley of Liverpool wrote:

“At £5.4m per carriage, these are the most expensive trains ever. For the same money, 30,000 high-speed luxury motorway coaches could be acquired, increasing the total size of the UK bus and coach fleet by 50%.”

I think he means that you could get 30,000 coaches for the £7.5bn cost of the whole order, not for £5.4m.  The order is for 1,400 train carriages, plus locomotives, so, including the cost of the locomotives (expensive, because they’re dual diesel/electric) one train carriage costs as much as around 21.5 coaches.  Hmm, maybe that’s not too unreasonable.

But, still, 5.4 million pounds – wow, that’s a lot of money!

Or is it?

Let’s assume, for ease of arithmetic, that the carriages seat 54 people each on an average trip (it’s probably more, since they’re filled like aeroplanes these days).  So that’s £100,000 per seat.  Wow, still a lot.

Wait a sec.  These carriages will be in service for decades.  Let’s just give them 20 years (they’re actually expected to last nearly twice as long as this, but, as you may have guessed by now, I like to make conservative estimates *).  Now we’re down to £5,000/seat/year.

See what I’m driving at?

Divide just once more and we see the cost is less than £15/seat/day over the 20 years.

And, of course, these trains can make, let’s say, two return trips (another conservative estimate) on one of the UK’s main lines every day.

So, for a single journey – London to Manchester, say – the portion of your ticket price needed to cover the investment in the rolling stock is at most a princely £3.75.

Think about that next time you shell out as much as £360 for a walk-on ticket, as the Guardian’s consumer champion reported on Saturday.

There was a reason why I scrutinised Professor Lewis Lesley’s “argument”.  I would much prefer a future where I am able to travel around the UK on high-speed trains than “high-speed luxury motorway coaches”.  This is a contradiction in terms: “luxury” and “coaches” do not belong together in the same sentence.  And virtually every vehicle on the UK’s roads is capable of exceeding the 70mph speed limit.  Only an idiot (or perhaps a Professor) would contemplate purchasing a fleet of coaches incapable of sustaining 70mph.  What the adjective “high-speed” is doing in the Professor’s sentence is therefore anyone’s guess.

Look, travelling by coach is an unpleasant experience.  That’s why, by and large, you find, proportionally-speaking, considerably more impoverished students on coaches and highly-paid Professors on trains.

It was when he started on the merits of promoting coach travel (in some unspecified way – presumably state diktat) that George Monbiot lost me in his (nevertheless worthwhile) book Heat.

Look, guys, if you’re going to get everyone out of their fossil-fuel powered cars and aeroplanes, then please, please provide an alternative vision that people can believe will improve their lives.  Heck, why not try to capture their imagination once in a while?  Because you’ll never get enough people to wear a hair-shirt.

Oh, and I agree with the Guardian’s correspondents who say we should be completing the electrification of the rail network, not buying diesel locomotives.  Getting rid of the need for dual-powered trains would also reduce the cost per carriage-seat even further, of course.

In fact, of course, the main costs of your rail (or coach) journey are fuel, staffing and maintenance of the infrastructure (not necessarily in that order), the last two of which are subject to economies of scale, so that the cost of rail travel should start to reduce if you can get the network into a dynamic of continued expansion of passenger numbers.  If the railways are run on renewable electricity, then in the long-run, the fuel cost will come down, because the cost of generating the energy will ultimately be subject to the scale economies of manufacturing.

Of course, the most significant cost to society of train or coach journeys is most likely the passengers’ time.  Perhaps this should be borne in mind by Professors making the recommendations on which Government transport policy is no doubt based.

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* Another way of looking at this is that the cost of the capital (think of it as a mortgage) to pay for the carriages would be something of the order of 5% pa – another reason for choosing the figure of 20 years for the lifetime of the carriages.

A comment piece by Philip Stephens in the FT caught my eye today.

Some wise words, not least about the bad timing of the Stansted protest.  I noted it was a distraction from the (under-reported) Poznan talks.  It’s clear too that – as implied in Stephens’ article – the rejection of consumerism is likely to find more support in boom times than during a recession.

Stephens’ main argument, though, is that, in general: “Self-flagellation does not sell” (unless, of course, the customer is Max Mosley trying to set an example to the F1 teams by reducing his costs), and that: “The case must be framed as an opportunity rather than a burden.”  Indeed.

I do disagree on one point, though.  Stephens writes:

“The young campaigners at Stansted had a point. There is something odd about the British government’s twin commitments to lower carbon emissions and to promoting a headlong expansion of London’s several airports.” [The grammar is not mine!].

If we just stop building runways we’ll just end up with even more overcrowded airports, and all but the most affluent will be forced to fly at inconvenient times.

No, what Plane Stupid should be doing is renaming themselves to something like Train Crazy and relocating from Stansted to King’s Cross (for some reason Gerald the Gorilla comes to mind as I write this).  Perhaps they could all dress in sardine costumes, invite the TV cameras and see how many of them could cram into a carriage on the 17:15 to Cambridge on a Friday evening (returning the space to the travelling public before the train leaves, of course).  Maybe highlighting the dire state of the rail service – and showing a little consideration while about it – would garner a little more support than screwing up people’s holidays.

The title, for those who might miss the reference, is a small homage to Fritz Zwicky, a cosmologist who doubted the Big Bang theory.  I strongly suspect that his scepticism will eventually prove to have been fully justified, but his cause was not helped by his habit of referring to his colleagues as “spherical bastards”, that is, bastards whichever way you looked at them.  In return, they ridiculed his theory of “tired light“.  How to win friends and influence people, eh!  I suspect though, that Zwicky was doomed by being very much in the minority, whereas I reckon I can get away with a corny dismissal of the activities of Plane Stupid because on this one I am very much in the majority, notwithstanding Leo Hickman’s attempts to justify the group’s action.

Whichever way you look at it, the invasion of Stansted does the cause of saving the planet from global warming no good at all.  Here are a few ways in which it is daft:

1. It creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of the average punter, who is struggling with his conflicting desires to jet off to Dublin for a stag do and to preserve the planet.  Actions such as this latest jolly wheeze send the message that global warming is a cause for smelly privileged students, not the mainstream.  It’s not sensible to provoke this sort of reaction.  A far superior strategy is to create sufficiently widespread feelings of guilt that people put up with the necessary measures – taxes and so forth – that will encourage alternative technologies or patterns of travel and other consumption.  So in this regard, Plane Stupid’s actions are counterproductive.

2. The protest seems to have been directed at the proposal to increase Stansted’s capacity.  Hence the threat to move on to Heathrow, where a new runway is also planned.  Now, failing to expand these airports will simply focus the industry on using the space more efficiently.  What you actually want them to be doing is using fuel more efficiently. We need to change the technology, not slow the increase in flying in the UK, which is the most the protestors could achieve.

3. If Heathrow and Stansted do reach capacity, then businesses that generate a lot of air-traffic – financial services, say – will simply relocate where the protestors can’t bother them.  Dubai, say.  The global warming problem will not be solved by reducing transport capacity.

4. There is a complete lack of vision.  It may turn out that aviation can be decarbonised more easily than other modes of transport.  There’s certainly a lot of scope for short-term energy savings.  Flying is high value-add, so may attract investment in low- or zero-carbon technology more effectively than, say, legacy rail systems.  Obviously, if we don’t have enough airport capacity, we won’t be in such a good position to exploit any advances in aviation technology.

5. Back on the psychology of the issue, surely the public is more likely to support a positive vision?  Why not campaign for the full electrification of the UK rail network?  Or for new routes?  For example, Stansted is by far the most convenient airport for residents of Cambridge and the surrounding area.  But Cambridge has no good rail link to the North – you usually have to change at Ely just to get to Peterborough to pick up the East Coast main line.  Surely many, many journeys could be moved from air to rail were there a fast train route from Cambridge to Peterborough.

In general we’d be best off building plenty of transport capacity, and making sure that the price of travel reflects as closely as possible the cost of fuel and hence carbon emissions.  That way, people will reduce their emissions simply by choosing the cheapest way of getting from A to B.

Nope, whichever way I look at it I can’t avoid the conclusion that actions such as the occupation of Stansted airport are counterproductive.  Plane Stupid by name, plain stupid by nature, that’s what I say.