When I started my South Wales Metro (or Cardiff Capital Region Metro) journey in 2010, I knew little of transport planning, rail operations and engineering, or the vagaries of civil service bureaucracy. I did know though, that having lived and/or worked in Manchester, London and Milan amongst other places, that public transport in Cardiff and its wider capital region was poor. We had an old depreciated and underutilised railway, running the oldest and dirtiest rolling stock in the UK, and increasing levels of car use and congestion. I knew that we really needed a Metro to help both our economy and our environment.
My feeling at the time as regards transport in Cardiff, was perhaps best captured in the words I used to conclude my first Metro report in 2011,
“…Let’s aim to do a few things well, instead of succumbing to the slow decline of homogenous mediocrity…”
Back in early 2010, I was fresh from the biotechnology start-up phase of my working life, so I knew about persistence, tenacity, people saying no, things going wrong and of course never having enough money. My earlier experience, aside from enabling me to learn from my mistakes, had also opened my eyes to the need to be a little more Machiavellian to achieve one’s objectives. This was a necessary skill when dealing with the bureaucracy of governments and the intricacies of political decision making, both big and small.
From the outset, the vision I had for Metro encompassed three primary objectives:
- providing more people in more places, viable public transport options for more journeys
- to leverage investment in public transport to stimulate economic development and regeneration, and so deliver Wider Economic Benefits (WEB)
- and perhaps now, most importantly, to secure a reduction in transport carbon emissions.
I also set out the need for a more effective and efficient regional approach to transport and economic development for the 1.6M people of the Cardiff Capital Region.
Today, I am much more cognisant of our pressing need to reduce carbon emissions globally and concerned that we achieve the significant mode shift we need away from cars to Public Transport and Active Travel as set out in Welsh Government’s, “Net Zero Wales”. Nor I am blind to the capital and revenue funding implications of this challenge.
In that context, this book aims to tell some of the backroom story from my perspective and expose perhaps the key facets of the advocacy and development necessary to make a transport vision like the £1Bn+ South Wales Metro a reality. They are:
- people and how they work individually and collectively within and across organisations
- politics (local, regional, national and UK), civil service bureaucracy and its decision-making processes
- formal transport planning and appraisal via Welsh Transport Appraisal Guidance (WelTAG)
- and finally, an understanding of the geography of the Cardiff Capital Region and especially its socio-economic characteristics.
Readers should be aware, that if you want the detailed technical story of the rolling stock, overhead line electrification (OLE), civil engineering, signalling, etc then I am not qualified to cover that; many others closer to those “spade in the ground details”, will tell a better story than me.
It’s also interesting to note when I launched my first Metro report in 2011, it was called “The Cardiff Capital Region Metro”, not “The South Wales Metro”. The politics of southeast Wales lent into that and may still do so again. I’ll use both terms in this book as I’m less concerned what we call it, but committed to see that we build it, and expand it.
I also touch upon my approach to doing things, and suggestions from some that I may present some neurodivergent traits. I do know that I sometimes struggle with process and bureaucracy, which I have often ignored; and with those who can’t see what I see and/or who think I offer views on matters without, in their opinion, sufficient subject matter knowledge. In my defence, I have always worked at the bigger scale and can often see pattens in seemingly unrelated events and data. A degree in Physics and an early career in software design exemplifies my ability to think spatially; something I think important when considering transport and economic development. I developed a professional confidence and ability to deal with change and uncertainty in my time as a Management Consulting with PA Consulting. A few years as a biotechnology entrepreneur gave me a thick skin and a determination to persist when many would walk away. I can also reflect that during my career, I have more often been proven right in my assertions, than not. So, fifteen years developing the vision and robustly advocating for a Cardiff Capital Region Metro seems an entirely appropriate use of my experience and capabilities.
This book is in five parts.
Part one sets the scene as I explore some of the back story in southeast Wales and what compelled me to “get involved” in 2010. I also try set out what a Metro is, and what it isn’t (and no, it’s not clear cut), as well as some of the broader reasons places like the Cardiff Capital Region need a Metro. I conclude with some aspects of the Metro vision that emerged in the Cardiff Region.
Part two is autobiographical in style and sets out my recollections from 2010-2024. In so doing I am very aware that there is no single version of the truth. Yes, I have been associated with the project since, for me, its inception in 2010. However, many other people have been and still are involved; some closer to the politics, and many much closer to the nuts-and-bolts details, and all will have a different story to tell. I invited a number of those individuals to contribute short sections in part five (and others are still welcome to provide their views) of this book as I wanted to give the reader a sense of the different perspectives and realities at play.
More importantly, I hope it demonstrates how diffuse “power” is, in an ecosystem with multiple public sector and governmental bodies, each with individuals with different degrees of focus, motivation and influence on the project. For the Metro to happen, all these had to align sufficiently, and as I have learned from other large projects, you also need some glue and so at least one focussed and committed individual to continue to agitate and tell the story, to pursue a goal and to wake up every day with the attitude “I am going to make this happen”. I know I did.
As I often tell students at Cardiff University, there are thousands of business plans for many great projects that never happen; getting something funded and delivered is as much a political and bureaucratic art form as it is a transport planning or engineering exercise. A good idea with a good business case is often a necessary but not sufficient reason to fund a project. As I hope this book sets out, decisions to progress with major projects are multi-faceted and often follow years, even decades, of advocacy. As important you need a vision that can be communicated easily, especially to those whose approval and funding will be required.
Whilst ultimately politicians make the decisions, it is also a reality that such decisions are heavily influenced by formal advice and briefings from civil servants. As I learnt, and in this regard Dominic Cummings was perhaps at least a little right, the civil service has perfected the ability to enable or impede political decisions and progress, often as it sees fit. One has to be able to operate in this environment to make progress.
We also have to acknowledge, that politicians are generally good and well meaning, they get blamed for nearly everything and thanked for almost nothing and have to work with a civil service bureaucracy they often don’t understand, which leans toward the tactical (and less so the strategic) and which has evolved with an in-built inertia. Frankly it’s a miracle anything of scale and complexity ever gets done in the UK.
Despite my critique of some aspects of the Metro, we have to acknowledge that to go from heresy in 2011, to operating a Metro in 2025/26 is remarkably quick for a major transport project. I remember the more recent form of Crossrail being announced when I lived in London in 1988 and it only started operating in full in 2023, 35 years later at a cost of over £22Bn, at least £8Bn over its original budget.
So, Welsh Government (WG) and Transport for Wales (TfW), despite all the issues and challenges on the way, deserve enormous credit for making this happen for just over £1Bn in the 13 years since I launched my first Metro report in 2011; and less than ten since Wales’s First Minister Carwyn Jones formally kicked off the project at Pontypridd Station in November 2015. This is more especially true given that at the outset, and still a major constraint today (September 2024), rail powers and funding thereof are not devolved to Welsh Government and still the responsibility of the UK Government.
Another learning for me, is that political and bureaucratic pragmatism often comes before technical and/or engineering purity. This is why we have (at the moment) on most of the Core Valley Lines (CVL), a Heavy Rail (HR) network operating with Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs) and not a fully de-designated Light Rail (LR) network which I argued for from 2014. This has implications as we now have a Metro network and services with higher unit operational costs than a pure LR system like the Manchester Metrolink.
Although I am critical of some decisions, I would not change where we are, or how we got here; I have learned that with a project like the Metro you have to understand what will make a project deliverable, and perhaps more importantly what might make it undeliverable. So, looking back, the only route open to us was probably the way we came and as I set out later, in the current phase of work, whilst no one got everything they wanted, everyone got some of what they wanted.
This exemplifies that in pursuing a vision, one needs to embrace the ability to adjust in flight and not hold onto a particular detailed manifestation of it. So, whilst my overall vision for Metro has changed little, its more detailed form has and continues to transition which you can see throughout this book; you have to play what is in front of you. When one gets to the top of a mountain and looks down, it is clear the path up is not straight, nor could it be. In making and advocating the case, as we did, you need key stakeholders, politicians, officials, etc to be in support of the Metro without necessarily knowing in detail exactly what form it will take.
I didn’t want to write an academic book to tell my Metro story, nor could I despite my title as Professor of Practice in Connectivity at Cardiff University’s School of Geography and Planning. I wanted to acknowledge the collective effort and an evolving story line over 15 years to actually make the current phase of the Cardiff Capital Region or South Wales Metro, a reality in 2025. I also wanted to show how my thinking and efforts have been shaped by the many people I have met, talked to and/or worked with over that period. Where I was able to remember, I have noted those who have been involved at different stages of the journey (and I apologise for those I missed) as well as those who have been advocating for such measures for much longer than me.
Part three reflects some of my learning over the period and provides, I hope, an easy-to-understand guide/reference to some of the political, economic, environmental, constitutional, transport and planning realities that are the backdrop to this ongoing story. The more informative and academic leaning content draws upon examples from the wider Cardiff Capital Region to illustrate key points.
In that vein, one cannot ignore the dysfunction of the UK rail ecosystem in terms of investment in Wales over decades (and lack thereof relative to the rest of the UK), and how that also motivated me not just to work toward building a Metro but to actively try and change that system in the UK. It also politicised me in a way I didn’t anticipate at the start of this journey. I can also clearly say, that despite the weakness of the current constitutional arrangements on this island, without devolution and the existence of a Welsh Government and a Senedd there would be no Metro.
Given the existential challenge of climate change, I also included my reflections on the role of cars in our society and the manifest need to reduce our dependency on them; not just in mobility terms but more especially in planning terms and what we build and where, and the importance of Transit Oriented Development (TOD). As important and within the context of the fiscal overhaul we need, I argue for a means to apportion to drivers and car owners some of the negative externalities associated with excessive car use. For me this is necessary to provide both an equitable disincentive to driving but also to provide the financial resources we need to build and operate the vastly increased public transport capacity we need.
Part four is more report like and, based upon work over the last 15 years, sets out what for me, are the priorities for further public transport services and capacity in Wales out to 2040, and some of the challenges we need to overcome to deliver it. I focus on the wider Cardiff region and set out the need to address the omissions in the current contracted programme, especially in Cardiff, and so provide the basis for a more comprehensive and integrated Metro system into the 2030s.
Part five is a collection (which will grow) of the views and recollections of others close to the project over the last fifteen years. There is no single version of the truth.
Thanks to…
A lot of people have been involved in the Metro project over the last 15 years, above all though, I have to pay tribute to James Price CEO of TfW and the leadership team at WG and TfW. (esp. Karl, Dan, Jan, Colin, Alexia, Marie, Heather, Geoff, Lee, Lewis, Leyton…) James has walked this route with me; perhaps not always on the same path or at the same pace, or even with the same destination in mind, but we have ended up at the same place. In fact, James Price’s path was much more difficult than mine. I have had little formal responsibility and accountability for the delivery of the Metro, James Price did and still does, and that responsibility comes with pressure and the need to compromise and make tough choices. For me I was able to and still do, focus on the vision and the politics.
Maybe the project needed the both of us? A situation that perhaps manifests Pirsig’s Romantic and Classical views of the world set out in his book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. The latter view is engaged and seeks to understand the components, processes and workings of the world, the former is more concerned with the lived experience. However, Pirsig ultimately embraced the middle ground and explored the need to transcend and embrace both a classical and romantic view of the world; one that combines and embraces details, rational analysis and objective knowledge with the romantic freedom of being and living in the moment.
I had no idea when studying that book on the Philosophy of Science module as part of my degree in Physics and The Analysis of Science and Technology at Manchester University in 1982, that it would take on a reality for me 30+ years later. It was the same course that introduced me to Machiavelli’s, “The Prince”, another valuable insight to how and why things happen. Another relevant read from that course was “The Double Helix”, which whilst reflecting the effort of Crick and Watson in uncovering the double helix structure of DNA, perhaps understated the contribution of Rosalind Franklin and her Xray crystallography. Generally, when someone is being lauded for their efforts for an achievement, almost certainly a whole bunch of other people are being overlooked. So, to restate again, the Metro project has been a coalition of the willing (and sometimes unwilling) to actually make something happen in Wales. I think President Harry Truman’s quote “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you do not care who gets the credit”, is apt. The Metro has clearly been a collective effort.
We also need to especially thank the Cardiff Business Partnership (CBP), The Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA) and the Metro Consortium, for providing me the platform and resources back in 2010~2013 to develop and communicate the Metro concept. So many thanks to David Stevens, Roy Thomas, Adrian Clarke, John Osmond and Geraint Talfan Davies and later Jon Fox and Alun Davies at Capita. A special mention must go to Luke Albanese, Andrew Jones and Simon Lander, whose knowledge and experience helped me during my time at Welsh Government from 2013-16. Nor can I forget the work of Professor Stuart Cole who has been advocating for improvement in Wales’s rail network far longer than me, nor the supportive engagement of the first Welsh Government officials I seriously engaged with on the Metro, Jeff Collins and Tim James. Finally, my thanks to Cardiff University’s School of Geography and Planning, and colleagues, who since 2016, have provided me an enormously valuable platform to talk about Metro formally, informally, publicly and privately.
Final words must go to my family who have been “Metroed“ incessantly by me over the last 15 years, which followed my similarly intense 6 years as a struggling biotechnology entrepreneur, but that is another story. They have heard too much about network designation, turn up and go frequency, new stations, integration and transit-oriented development, but have nonetheless supported my single-minded focus on this project, especially my wife Geraldine. So, thank you to Geraldine, Tomos, Marianne and my parents Philip and Frances, and not forgetting my brother Sion who opened doors and walked with me on this journey.
I hope you enjoy the trip.
Mark Barry, Professor of Practice in Connectivity, School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University, October 2024.
Figure 1 Illustration of Metro timeline from 1936 to 2030 and beyond….