We need more than a Metro definition, we need a Metro Vision
It’s all very well trying to describe a Metro (and there will always be a debate about the fine detail), the more important question to answer is what one might need a Metro to achieve and in so doing developing and presenting a Metro Vision.
It is clear to me that no senior official or politician is going to sign off on potentially £Bns of public money on a long term and risky capital programme with ongoing subsidy commitments, without being pretty clear on the why, the benefits and the purpose?
If you haven’t got clarity on these facets, then most likely, your “Metro” will never get funded, and even it is does secure some initial capital it will likely fail when the politics get difficult.
In this chapter I cover:
- 3.1 Why Metro?
- i) Connecting more people to more places using public transport
- ii) TOD and equitable & sustainable economic development
- iii) Recognise and responding to the Climate Emergency
- 3.2 The Cardiff Capital Region Metro Vision
- Chapter 3 References
3.1 Why Metro?
Today the three primary reasons we need to think and build Metros in the UK are
- to connect more people to more places using public transport
- to enable Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and support more equitable economic development across the UK
- the climate emergency and a need to reduce transport carbon emissions.
These considerations have formed the basis of my Metro thinking and my evolving “vision” for Metro since 2010
i) Connecting more people to more places using public transport
This is the most obvious and perhaps easiest “why” to set out and articulate. How do we make it easier for more of us to make trips, from home, to school, to the office, to the shop, hospital etc using something other than a car (Also remembering 20% of often the poorest households in the UK do not have access to a car and so depend on public transport in their day to day lives[1]). In urban areas with sufficient population density, this will be some form of urban mass transit using rail and/or bus and some form of “Metro”. In many cases often with first and last mile using Active Travel (AT)[2]
The benefits, as I exemplify throughout this book (For example 15.2 Benefits of public transport), are significant and if presented holistically and with sufficient quantification will contribute to securing the necessary political support. As a minimum they include the formally calculated traditional transport user benefits. However, to really “sell” the project one has to include wider benefits. So, for example, agglomeration economic benefits, local regeneration and development, reduced road accidents, improved air quality, reduced CO2 emission, reduced road congestion so that those that need to drive can do so more easily.
ii) TOD and equitable & sustainable economic development
As I cover in Why we need Transit Oriented Development (TOD), it is in our planning and development response to transport investment where the more substantive long-term benefits can be found. It has often been said that a good transport plan is a good land use plan. We have had fifty years of car-based land use planning, so the challenge for the next 50 is to reverse that and enable much more and denser development around our public transport systems. This will support not just economic development and regeneration benefits, but will have a significant impact on reducing car-based carbon emissions
Moreover, in recent years, given the generational economic dislocation of losing a primary industry, places like southeast Wales have been the subject of political “levelling up” rhetoric. Whilst the attention is welcome, I suspect few people fully appreciate the scale of the challenge to actually deliver on so may easy political promises.
“Levelling Up” raises some serious constitutional questions and has to go beyond the shallow populist rhetoric we have become accustomed to over the last few years. As I have stated elsewhere[3], the “levelling up “mantra associated with the last UK Conservative Government, can only be realised with a major constitutional and fiscal overhaul; it will never work if based on a little more cash being dispensed though politically compromised Westminster largesse. A handout economy and a handout constitution based entirely around Westminster and Whitehall, has not and can never really work for everyone and every place on this island, especially in Wales. Does the new UK Labour Government fully appreciate this issue? Time will tell.
The over centralised nature of UK government bureaucracy and the power of the Treasury in London is part of the problem. The current arrangements have resulted in the devolved governments, especially in Wales with more limited responsibilities, being generally more administrative rather than strategic. They have responsibility for spending functions (like Health, Education, etc which generally have a higher per capita need than the UK average), rather than having full access to the more fundamental levers of power, especially fiscal, and for Wales, economic infrastructure like rail, energy, water, The Crown Estate, etc. Whilst Scotland has a little more freedom and leverage, the regions and major cities of England are even more constrained than Wales.
I recall in a conversation with the UK Government Treasury team updating the Treasury Green Book[4] a few years ago, I suggested that UK Government investment decisions, appraisal and BCRs thereof, tend to focus UK Government investment where the “numbers are biggest” as well as “overvaluing metrics that can be easily counted, and undervaluing those which can’t”.
One of the problems for the UK it seems to me, is that major investment decisions related to essential economic infrastructure (esp. rail) are made by a small number of senior officials and politicians in and around Number 10, Whitehall and The Treasury. This is one of the reasons why capital spending per capita[5] is typically higher in London than anywhere else in the UK[6] Figure 31 and as I set out later, the figure for Wales is overstated somewhat (given it includes an allocation for HS2 and WG spend in non-devolved areas). So, it’s no surprise that higher GDP/capita has followed that investment, with everywhere else in the UK appearing to lag behind, so exacerbating national and regional imbalances in the UK economy). As Marquand set out, the economy of southeast Wales has needed levelling up since the 1930s.
All this, for me, is reflective of the long-term systemic undervaluation of the importance of investment in economic infrastructure in the UK, especially high quality, accessible public transport. In the UK we need to adopt the more generally held European view of public transport as essential economic infrastructure, as manifest in the availability and range of services available to passengers, as well as capacity, across Europe.
For example, in the 1970s the French Government established legislation to enable local authorities the powers to levy a payroll tax on businesses and public bodies in urban areas to fund public transport and active travel. The proliferation of light rail systems in France since then, and the massive support of public transport in Paris, is as a direct consequence of that measure, called the “Versement Transport” [18]. This more enlightened view is not shared by Westminster and Wales does not have all the statutory powers to replicate that approach.
So, there is clearly a need to develop a sustainable and more equitable economy and, as the last UK Government stated[7], to “level up”. Whilst the words maybe new, the underlying challenge is not new and in southeast Wales, as stated earlier, were raised as long ago as 1936 by Prof Marquand. I look forward the what the UKs new Labour Government will actually do beyond just dropping the term “Levelling Up”.
Figure 31 HMT Total capital identifiable expenditure by country ®ion, per head 2014-19
I hope they recognise that it is capital investment in economic infrastructure that Wales and many other parts of the UK need to actually “level up” and to address the “output gap” with London and southeast England. Just pointing at the higher per capita spending in Wales on lagging revenue expenditure like Health, Social services, etc (which in Wales have a higher per capita need than the UK average as Wales generally has an older sicker population and an influx of retirees) misses the point as it is equity in capital investment, especially public transport infrastructure, housing and energy, that is needed to sustainably level up economic development.
More broadly, we can’t continue to feed an economy that does not account properly for the irresponsible depletion of natural resources, our environment and the excessive production of CO2. Similarly, the challenges of post-industrial decline impacting many other parts of the UK requires more than rhetoric. So, “Levelling Up” also has to reflect that much of the benefit and value the UK economy has enjoyed for 200 years has not only left us with environmental liabilities and obligations but was based on the efforts and resources from many smaller older communities right across the UK. The post-industrial decline that has afflicted many such communities for decades has left us with issues and liabilities re: skills, access to jobs, depreciated transport infrastructure, scarred landscapes, etc that need to be acknowledged by UK Government. The suggestion that the Welsh Government should be responsible for the risks and liabilities associated with 200 years of coal mining that benefited the whole UK, enabled imperial expansion and its legacy, good and bad, and clearly pre-dates the Welsh Government, reflects a completely out of touch Westminster/Whitehall mindset.
We are also facing the issue in Wales of the disappearance of European Regional Development Funding (which was a major contributor to the capital cost of the South Wales Metro). The quanta of the UK Government Shared Prosperity and Levelling Up funding that has replaced it, is an order of magnitude smaller. In that context and at a more granular level, we also need to support interventions that encourage and enable more entrepreneurship and innovation.
So, “Levelling up” or whatever the new UK Labour Government decide to call it, requires, as WG have stated, “positive discrimination in how funding and investment decisions are made”. This is even more important for Wales given the scale and economic impact of rail schemes being developed elsewhere in the UK (especially HS2 – even in its reduced form) which has the potential to negatively impact the Welsh economy without further transport interventions. Something for the new UK Labour Government to address.
iii) Recognise and responding to the Climate Emergency
Today, the primary contextual consideration we all have to put centre stage is the Climate Emergency, and from a transport perspective the absolute need to increase PT and AT and reduce car dependency. Going further we have an urgent need to decarbonise everything we do; not just our mobility systems and choices, but our economy and especially to address the unconstrained consumerism which has and continues to do, so much environmental damage across the globe. Our wider failure to recognise, quantify and apportion the negative externalities associated with our economic activities is a major contributory factor to the current existential challenge we face.
The risks and impacts of not acting cannot be understated; and despite positive policy statements like Net Zero Wales, government budgets in both Cardiff and London are not currently aligned to those commitments.
I am sure most of you will be aware of the stark UN 2022 IPCC 6th Assessment Report on Climate Change Mitigation[8] and its associated press summary[9]. In 2023 the IPCC presented an even more worrying Synthesis Report[10]. Here are some excerpts from the 2023 summary for Policy makers:
Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020. Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase, with unequal historical and ongoing contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use change, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production across regions, between and within countries, and among individuals (high confidence).
Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people (high confidence). Vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately affected (high confidence).
All global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot, and those that limit warming to 2°C (>67%), involve rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors this decade. Global net zero CO2 emissions are reached for these pathway categories, in the early 2050s and around the early 2070s, respectively. (high confidence)
Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health (very high confidence). There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence). Climate resilient development integrates adaptation and mitigation to advance sustainable development for all, and is enabled by increased international cooperation including improved access to adequate financial resources, particularly for vulnerable regions, sectors and groups, and inclusive governance and coordinated policies (high confidence). The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years (high confidence.
The graphic in Figure 32 is also stark re our collective prospects over the next 100 years.
Figure 32 From IPPC 2023 Summary for Polic Makers -Impact on Future Generations
Frankly the house is on fire, and we have to act…
I am perplexed, why, like we did with Covid, we don’t have a daily press conference from Ministers at Westminster and the Senedd, setting out the status and plans/progress to address the Climate Emergency (which is an order of magnitude at least more urgent than Covid).
The stark reality is that Net Zero Wales does not go far enough, I know we need to do more, and that despite my earlier protestations, discussions and arguments about economic growth are arbitrary and secondary to the real issue at hand. We have to make some deep and meaningful changes on tax, mobility, our economy, food, energy, etc and we have to start now; not after a future Regional Transport Plan, or the next “relevant” election. I am getting older and care less about process and sensibilities and more about the legacy of our generation and the kind of planet we will bequeath our children.
It is also clear to me that those with the most need to make the biggest changes. The obscenity of so few people causing so many emission (1% cause over 50% of global aviation emissions) through the use of so many private jets[11] exemplifies the scale of the problem and the inequity. More broadly according to Oxfam[12], the richest 1 percent were responsible for 16 percent of global consumption emissions in 2019 — more than all car and road transport emissions. The richest 10 percent accounted for half (50 percent) of emissions. We should recognise that that 10% includes most of us living in Europe and the US. More stark is the reality that approx. 15% of all our emission in the UK derive from car use – so reducing our need to drive is a key component of any credible response. (See The Climate Emergency and car dependency).
Clearly here in Wales we can’t turn the dial globally on carbon emissions; but we can show others what it is possible to achieve. Those of us in senior positions or in leadership roles can and should influence political discourse, policy and actions. As I have often said,
“our job is not to change the world,
……but to show the world how to change”.
I am also convinced that we need fundamental fiscal and regulatory change to properly account for and apportion (nationally, corporately and individually) the damaging climatic and environmental externalities associated with our GDP/GVA economies[13]. Without such, the task for me is probably insurmountable.
3.2 The Cardiff Capital Region Metro Vision
All of the above have subliminally flowed into how I developed and presented my Cardiff Capital Region Metro Vision. This slide Figure 33 is pretty much unchanged since I first used it in back in 2012. I think this very simple manifestation can support the case for a Metro in most urban areas. It also influenced how initial development work was structured, especially via the 2013 Metro Impact Study (See 4.9 The Metro Impact Study (2013)) and its emphasis on economic benefits and regeneration right across the Cardiff Capital Region (No it wasn’t and isn’t all about Cardiff.)
Figure 33 My Metro Vision slide
This simple Metro Vision narrative was expanded upon in a wide range of publications and documents. For example, from a Welsh perspective, this is how I described the South Wales Metro in Welsh Government’s Rolling out our Metro[14] in 2015, which I think is still apt.
Metro is a new transport system that will transform the way we travel around the Cardiff Capital Region. It will provide faster, more frequent and joined-up services using trains, buses and light rail. Metro will bring benefits to passengers, link communities together and help transform the economy. It will have a positive social, economic and environmental effect. It will also shape our region’s identity.
Figure 34 Illustration of Metro concept developed for CCR and then updated for WG in 2015
The features of the Cardiff Capital Region Metro set out in Rolling out our Metro were also clear and ambitious.
The Cardiff Capital Region Metro will deliver real benefits to passengers. The network can grow through new services, routes and stations to connect population centres that are, at present, poorly served by regional public transport. This will boost economic development and regeneration across the region. Its key features will be:
High frequencies – Metro will run at least four services an hour across the entire network when needed, and even more at the network core. This gives a ‘turn up and go’ experience for passengers. Metro will also deliver a network where interchange is easy, using vehicles designed for speed and capacity.
Integration – Heavy rail, light rail, bus or active travel (cycling and walking) – all of these will be seamlessly joined to give integrated, reliable and frequent services across the region. This transformation in sustainable urban mobility and increased accessibility will have a profound impact. It will have positive social, economic and environmental effects. It will also shape the region’s identity
An extendable network – A vital part of the Metro vision is that the network can grow to make it even more accessible. New stations, new routes, greater frequencies — in the future, the network can extend to bring better public transport to more communities and economic centres. It is a truly regional project.
Enabling development and regeneration – Metro stations will provide better passenger facilities and become a focal point for their communities. Metro also presents an opportunity for developers and local authorities, in partnership with transport organisations. Together, they can adopt a ‘transit-oriented development’ approach, directing development and regeneration to Metro transport corridors and their key stations and interchanges.
In 2023 TfW described Metro on its website[15] via a number of statements, including:
Metro will be purpose built for Wales’s future. It will make it easier for us all to travel, whether that’s by train, bus, bike or on foot. It will be a modern, efficient and sustainable way to travel so that we can all use our cars less and public or active travel more.
Metro will help communities to connect and businesses to thrive. It will open up a range of job, leisure, business and other opportunities, transforming Wales’s future economic prospects.
All these vision statements capture a lot of what Metro is and for me manifest some of the reasons I started the Metro journey back in 2010. When articulating my Metro Vision, I also set out the root problem, which was poor public transport connectivity and then expanded into how this impacts economic performance and contributes to excessive car use and carbon emission.
The whole development and articulation of the why and the vision, typically comes before formal business case development, project approvals, and specific solutions and interventions. It’s an advocacy effort that is often poorly funded and can take years, or even decades. By necessity it also has to involve and secure the support of a broad range of strategic stakeholders. This work provides the fundamental and essential foundation for all that follows. (See Developing a Cardiff Capital Region Metro Vision (2010-2013))
An important and often underappreciated feature is that the vision did not and does not, get bogged down or constrained by specific details of routes, services or modes. It was deliberately bigger picture and focussed on the more generic features and benefits that would help secure a broad stakeholder support. Yes, early on, I did set out illustrations and examples of what it might look like in more detailed terms – but that was to try and influence thinking and/or to exemplify the opportunity. The reality is that specifics would come much later, once a committed procurement, design and implementation phase was underway. Vision is much more about advocacy and seeking to secure political support and funding, and done in a way that it can “adjust in flight”. You can’t hold on to one particular manifestation of a vision as the details will always be subject to change.
So, to conclude, in 2024, as it was back in 2010, the Metro concept in the Cardiff Capital Region, is for me, primarily about:
- Connecting more people to more places using high quality, frequent (at least 4 services an hour), reliable and integrated public transport (rail and/or bus) services
- Developed and delivered in a way that enables local and sustainable economic development and regeneration and especially Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
- Encouraging mode shift and decarbonising our mobility choices as implied by the targets included in the Wales Transport Strategy[16] and Net Zero Wales[17]
- The development of a more cohesive Cardiff Capital Region of 1.6M people.
I think the Daniel Burnham quote I referenced earlier is also apt, especially if you want to secure support and funding,
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized’.
This is the basis on which I think of Metro and how I have and continue to engage with public bodies and politicians on the subject.
References
[1] National Travel Survey 2021: Household car availability and trends in car trips – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
[2] Active Travel (AT) is a term often used to describe walking and cycling
[3] South Wales Metro & Devolution – Mark Barry (swalesMetroprof.blog)
[4] HM Treasury, 2022, The Green Book: appraisal and evaluation in central government – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
[5] House of Commons Library, 2022 Public spending by country and region – House of Commons Library
[6] HMT, Country and Regional Analysis 2019, CRA_2019
[7] UK Government “Levelling up” PM Economy Speech: 30 June 2020 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
[8] IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, 2022, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (ipcc.ch)
[9] IPCC, Sixth assessment Report, 2022, Summary for Policy Makers WGIII Summary for Policymakers
[10] IPCC, 2023, AR6 Synthesis Report, AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 (ipcc.ch)
[11] Private jets: can the super-rich supercharge zero-emission aviation? (transportenvironment.org)
[12] EU’s richest 10% emit as much planet-heating emissions as half the EU’s poorest population | Oxfam International
[13] M Barry, 2022 The Environment, Tax and Wales – Mark Barry (swalesMetroprof.blog)
M Bary, 2023 What use is GDP on a planet with no trees or bees? – Mark Barry (swalesMetroprof.blog)
[14] Welsh Government (M Barry), 2015, “Rolling out our Metro” south-wales-Metro-brochure.pdf (gov.wales)
[15] Transport for Wales, Metro Metro | Transport for Wales (tfw.wales)
[16] Welsh Government, 2021, “Llwybr Newydd Wales Trasport Strategy” Llwybr Newydd: the Wales transport strategy 2021 | GOV.WALES
[17] Welsh Government, 2021, “Net Zero Wales” Net Zero Wales | GOV.WALES;
Policy 32 – Increase trip mode share of public transport from a current estimated proportion of 5% to 7% by 2030 (a 40% increase) and 13% by 2040; Policy 31 ‒ Increase trip mode share of active travel from a current estimated proportion of 27% to 33% by 2030 and at least 35% by 2040; Infers a reduction in car mode share from 68% to 60% by 2030 and down to 52% by 2040 and nearly three times as much PT use by 2040
[18] Jon Stone, Independent, 2022 To fix public transport in Britain, we should copy France | The Independent