To be so sad about our transport infrastructure

[HipTeens]

Twenty years ago I did a year abroad in Europe, split over three countries, one of which was Spain.

It was great, I didn't have much money but transport in particular was affordable and well provisioned.

I took trains all over to explore, and in Spain I took coaches. I couldn't believe how reliable and cheap a coach trip to somewhere like Gibraltar was.

Fast forward to now and I have just read a piece in the guardian about how well Spain has developed its high speed train network, and how low the fares are.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/spains-high-speed-trains-arent-just-efficient-they-have-transformed-peoples-lives

I am really pleased for them, but also really sad that our country manages to make such a hash of stuff like this. Dentistry and health care provision is going the same way, and I'm really really scared for our collective future.

I could blame politics, hut ither countries have politics too, arguments between right and left, occasional scandal, and so on.

How are we getting so much so very wrong?

€19 to leave the car at home and travel between Madrid and Barcelona - 400km in 2.5 hours? Yes please! I tried booking a ticket here across country here and they wanted £110. I had to take my car.

Spain was relatively poor and undeveloped until recently. They’ve had a lot of EU money to bring things up to the current standard. Meanwhile we’re stuck with crumbling Victorian infrastructure.

The article says they've had about 25% of infrastructure cost come from the EU.

Having just watched the race across the world episode in Spain, the fast trains aren't that cheap, there was a big difference.

Much of the infrastructure was funded by the eu including lovely motorways which were devoid of traffic - a breeze to drive there but I was just shocked at the poverty away from the southern beaches, pleading by hotel owners to tell my friends to visit them. I love the Atlantic side of Spain

It probably started with Beaching and his report, which as I understand it was corrupt. He had financial incentives to favour roads over rail.

Plans to extend the railway here in Norfolk are essentially a partial reversal of his handiwork. Funding? Charity donations, to extend what are currently "heritage" lines, salvaged from his wreaking ball report, to join them together and reconnect to the mainline. This is one of the things that sickens me about the money wasted on HS2. Unlike HS2, funding this work properly would reconnect (relative for Norfolk) large urban settlements to the rail network. No doubt similar scenarios exist around the country.

The cheapest I have found in UK is Megabus booked in advance

There's just no incentive to using public transport for longer distances, particularly when travelling as more than one person.

A few weeks ago a group of 4 of us were looking at getting to York from Derby - 1h45 on the train and £225 (total), versus 1h55 driving and £50 for petrol and parking.

Guess which we chose?

I live less than 40miles from central London. It’s cheaper for me to drive to zone 6, park my car and get the underground in then pay for an off-peak train ticket even with pre booking.

Yes it's sad and mad

Population density and the huge number of cars isn't helping us. Lots of population and activity concentrated into one small area (SE England) makes it hard.

Also history, not just Beeching, but we have a large network that is used by huge numbers of people - just keeping it all going is expensive, never mind improvements. Just one tiny example, elsewhere in the world they can build double decker trains to increase capacity - but because we are so built up and we designed railways a particular way, we can't do the same (at least not without massive expense).

I looked at travelling to London with my dh - for the two of us to travel to London (1hr20 journey), it would cost £60 return each - not including tube, so £120 + tube tickets plus £15 car parking at the original station

In contrast, if we drive to Stratford and park at Westfield, it will take 50 mins, £40 in petrol and £18 car parking + tube tickets. There's literally no way that we can justify taking the train.

A year or so ago, I took the kids with my mum to London. It was genuinely cheaper to buy a cheap premier inn hotel room and pay for parking and have two days in London than take the train and get a family return ticket.

I wanted to take my kids to York fora few days last half term, the trains were £££, we went to Dublin in the end it was cheaper to fly.

Unfortunately, whether you agree with rail strikes or not, people are using alternatives because trains aren’t reliable.

To drive to an outlet place from here, takes about half an hour and there’s a Park and Ride you can use. To go by bus takes two hours.

Id happily use public transport if it was affordable, regular and reliable.

There was an interesting documentary on BBC4 last night about British Rail that, amongst other things, highlighted that our railway system was one of the best value (provision for taxpayer expenditure) in the world before privatisation - only the swedes were ahead of us.

We can't even reliably get a bus into town here (2 miles away). Public transport is just another one of the services in this country that has gone to shite - well, they all have!

I go by public transport everywhere here and get where I need to go. I travel all day for my job and it's 99% reliable. Many of my friends are ditching their cars as too expensive to run.

I'm up North btw

Best value it may have been, but it was, generally, crap at service delivery.

I am old enough to remember it and I would agree up to a point - however I'd say the privatisation hasn't been all upside.
We are country with a lot of people wanting to move around, often to from and in very densely populated areas so transport will always be a challenge.

Interesting how much of our infrastructure problems stem from our being the first country to industrialise. So our public transport, sewers, hospitals etc require major modernisation at a time when the drive (from 1979 onwards) has been towards a US- style model of lower taxation (crap railways, no free healthcare) as opposed to a European high-tax state.
I generalise…

I'd be really surprised if it was any less crap than it is today! And I do remember BR.

I'd be absolutely astonished if it's any cheaper to the taxpayer today.

Plus with the demise of BR we've lost any kind of national planning, a whole generation of train design and native manufacture, and of course the ability to plan and carry out building a new line without paying massively more and delivering massively less.

I'd bet if BR still existed there would be actual high speed rail in the UK right now, instead of just a tiny bit of Eurostar/ Ashford.

Indeed - according to the BBC4 programme, much of the technology now used in european tilting trains was the result of the R&D BR did for the APT.

Imagine if we had been able to capitalise on being leaders in rail tech, instead of buying it in from everyone else.

Its so depressing. I need to travel to a UK city 150 miles away (300m round trip next weekend, cheapest rail fare is £95 travelling at a not-ideal time, I can drive it for half the cost. If I needed to travel mid week (I often do) it's closer to £300 and as much as I appreciate the environmental impact, I can't swallow that extra cost.

They've had a huge amount of investment from the EU, which comes from European taxpayers. We paid for a chunk.

public transport in Europe is so cheap, yet here it goes up so much it’s almost not affordable. And London is getting rid of day travel cards so it will be even more expensive. thanks unions and governments…. Not

When I got my old farts' bus pass, I thought I'd be gadding about all over the place for free. Was I ever wrong!

Living in a small town in a mainly rural county, most of the options for bus travel are both limited and long winded. I looked into going to visit a friend 20 miles away. It involves 3 buses, takes a minimum of 90 minutes, and involves going several miles east of the most direct route and then back in a westerly direction. By car? 30 minutes max.

A trip to the nearest decent sized town in the same county by bus involves going 7 miles in the completely wrong direction, then getting a bus 18 miles along the coast, and takes an hour and three quarters, as opposed to a 30-40 minute 17 mile car journey.

I could get just one bus to my SIL's, which is a 26 mile trip into the next county, but even if it runs according to the timetable it's 2.25 hours, as opposed to 40 minutes in the car.

It's no wonder the roads are so busy.