Clean, Efficient, Affordable

Jamie Driscoll writes:

You wait ages for a bus and two turn up once. Although these days you’ll be lucky if a bus turns up at all. Since 2010 England has lost half its bus routes – down from 17,394 to 8,781.

That statistic hides the towns and villages cut off from public transport. The jobs and courses people can’t get to. The second hand cars people are borrowing money to buy because there’s no bus service.

Plenty of European counties have clean, efficient, affordable public transport. A series of poor political decisions has undermined Britain’s. In 1985, while undermining North East industry, Margaret Thatcher found time to introduce the Transport Act. It deregulated bus services outside of London – not in London, mind. It created a wild west where bus operators compete on core routes while quieter routes wither.

An economist would call it market failure. If a transport network has big gaps, people can’t get end-to-end journeys, and so don’t use public transport at all. The long term effect is a year-on-year reduction in passenger numbers. Public transport becomes an afterthought when planning new shopping centres and housing developments.

65% of people think buses should be publicly owned. I agree. In fact, they already are. Just not by the British public. Our largest bus company Arriva, headquartered in Sunderland, is owned by Deutsche Bahn – owned by the German public. If you take the 306 to the coast or the 553 to the Freeman Hospital, your fare is subsidising the German rail network. I’m all for Germans having good public transport. I just don’t think we should pay for it.

In the North East alone, bus companies extract £30.7 million a year to pay shareholders. That could be reinvested in better services and electric vehicles.

I should declare an interest – I don’t own a car. I get around by bike, train, metro and bus. I think our public transport system would be better run if more politicians actually used it.

But I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. When I studied engineering at Northumbria University in the nineties, I wrote a whole paper on what future integrated public transport could look like. Thirty years on and we’ve gone backwards. So how do we fix it?

In my 2019 manifesto I said I’d negotiate to bring the whole region into one Mayoral Combined Authority to get transport devolved. Well, we’ve done that. And got £4.3 billion with it./ If I’m elected North East Mayor, I’ll build a Total Transport Network – fully integrated public transport under public control. With free travel for all young people under 18. 

From May next year we’ll have the power to bring buses back under public control. It’s not a magic bullet, mind. We still have to pay for it, and if mismanaged, the council tax payer foots the bill. I’ve not charged you a penny in council tax as North of Tyne Mayor, and I don’t intend to start now.

A better system means more passengers, so more revenue. A single intelligent network covering the North East from Berwick to Barnard Castle. Where every bus has a transponder so passengers can see its location on an app, in real time, and be sure it’s coming. Where we use that data for continuous improvement.

Where traffic hotspots have bus gates – so when the bus approaches, the traffic lights change and give it priority while the cars wait. Faster buses means fewer cars on the roads. So a plumber with a van full of tools or a doctor on call can spend their time doing their job instead of sitting in traffic.

Joined-up on demand buses in rural areas to connect everyone, whether they drive or not. Reservable bike lockers in town centres so you’re not worried about theft.

A single account keyed to your smartphone or smartcard that automatically charges you the lowest fare. So once you’ve hit a price cap, you get unlimited travel for free, whether you switch between bus, Metro, National Rail, or e-scooter.

I was an engineer long before I became a politician – fixing broken systems is what I do. As one famous cartoon builder said, “Can we fix it? Yes we can!”

And:

Martin Kettle’s article on independent political voices hits some key points, but is Westminster-focused. England’s metro mayors display a greater degree of independence than MPs. Andy Street has been critical of the Conservative government. Both Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan have pursued policies at odds with the leader of the opposition. Keir Starmer has openly attacked both of them as a result. Unlike MPs or councillors, mayors are not subject to a whip. And Sir Keir, it seems, does not like their independence.

I am the independent metro mayor of the North of Tyne. It was independent behaviour that painted a target on my back and led the Labour party to block me. I do not fit the media label of a Corbynista – I’m noted for working cross-party and landing the best funded devolution deal in England. For setting up a venture capital fund and landing inward investment on the one hand, while working well with trade unions and the voluntary sector on the other. Strong on climate action, but great on taxpayer value for money. Tories, Liberal Democrats and independents openly praised my work and pragmatic approach long before Labour blocked me.

I could never have achieved this inclusive consensus in Westminster, which is set up to be adversarial. Nor with Labour’s attempt at north-east devolution in 2004, which was to be a regional assembly elected on party lists.

The debate about electoral reform focuses almost exclusively on PR for Westminster, which is necessary but not sufficient. Until we diversify where and how decisions are made, we’ll never see innovations tried and tested, or see any real progress that is not tied to the five-year parliamentary cycle.

I am not as convinced as Jamie is about Proportional Representation, but that is a detail. Keep giving generously.