Massive Rail Investment

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Article here Capital infrastructure projects have to be a good thing and £9bn to upgrade the railways seems long overdue. Finally, a modern electrified network.

It does sound good but I was cringing at the Today interview with the Transport Secretary yesterday. She was well out of her depth.

so once again the country that is supposed to be broke finds oodles of cash

From the interview yesterday it sounds like ticket prices are going to keep going up to fund it. It looks liek a case of having to spend money to save money and our infrastructure is so ancient it's well overdue.

does anyone else think there are people for whom the Condems can do no right?
if thy had spent this on roads (and i think there is a great case for huge investment in roads) someone would say - why not rail?

because it is rail, the expenditure is criticised.

i find infrastructure investment a very worthwhile kind of spending, one that can help the UK up its lamentable (by comparison to, say Germany) productivity levels and get business back up and providing jobs.

although the 3% above inflation ticket price hike yet again will penalise people for travelling to work - at a time when petrol prices make the car an equally expensive alternative...

this was the trend during the previous government also so i don't see much party-political about it.

does anyone else think there are people for whom the Condems can do no right?

Oh god yes. The govt could announce a cure for cancer tomorrow and some people would be moaning about the number of nurses which would now be forced out of the NHS and how it's just a ploy from the rich to keep more poor people working for longer.

If you wanted to look at boosting productivity levels on the railways (for the minimum of expenditure) they should be looking at providing wi-fi to the carriages rather than trying to shave 5 minutes off a journey.

It would cost a hell of a lot less than £9 billion too!

"the country that is supposed to be broke finds oodles of cash"

The network is only part of the story. An electrified system is going to require new engines and probably rolling stock to go with them. That's not being funded by the taxpayer and the rail companies will have to raise capital to pay for it.

If we'd spent more in the boom years on long-term projects like this rather than splashing out on current expenses maybe the country wouldn't be so broke?

I hate about 90% of what the ConDems are doing, but I think this is long overdue and will be good for the economy. It's just a shame we can't invest similar into other forms of transport and housing - things that will bring people tangible benefits at grass roots level as well as the more abstract benefit to the economy (which some people feel is totally removed from their own lives, even though they operate within it IYSWIM).

Yes, more money spent on trains: good for the environment, provides jobs.

Next step: nationalise the rail network! Then all the lovely profits generated by the long-suffering commuters could go straight back into lowering prices for them and providing an excellent service. Rather than into the bloated bonuses of the transport bosses.

There's no end of things we 'should' be investing in. I took a walk today into my local town centre to buy a few things and it struck me how much things have changed for the worse in the last few years.

So many stores have closed on our high street, Currys being the latest. Plenty of To-Let signs up with store fronts all run down. The only stores which seem to be thriving are Pound shops & charity stores.

This is what people see day in, day out and I think it all contributes to the general lack of confidence.

Imo the only truly democratic power we have is as consumers. So if you want to see thriving high streets you need to go there and not buy stuff online or from multinational concerns.

That's not going to happen because our lives are full and we all go for the most convenient option.

So we need to think about the sort of society we want to live in. As far as the rail network is concerned, we want cheap rail fares, short journey times, a solid, safe infrastructure, an extended network and extra coaches at peak times. We just don't want to pay for it.

niceguy some councils are considering 'free parking' saturdays to get people back into town...there is loads local government can do for their town if they wish.

in my area, however, parking restrictions are being tightened and charges increased.. they just don't want us in town!

there are a couple of large supermarkets out of town that offer free parking and a relatively rain-free shopping experience and i expect they are doing vey well ATM..

"t's just a shame we can't invest similar into other forms of transport and housing"

i thought the government had announced a big package of transport stuff? and housing?

Barratt homes announced a profit this year built off govt-partnership shared equity schemes....(20% of their total revenue)

both of these policies were also in some form in Gordon Browns Manifesto! if i were to criticise the Condems for anything, it would be lack of originality ...

how can we invest in anything?
we are broke.
people like niceguy keep saying that

total government expenditure is still increasing - just at a slower rate.

if anything i think the Condems have cut much less than they need to all told, though i think infrastructure investment is one of the better pieces of expenditure - one that is going to give back in the longer term.

I think that the investment is good and long overdue.

However, to fund it mainly through increasing ticket prices is madness, it will just push people off the railway and into the car or not travelling at all.

It is wrong to think that the passenger should pay because the passenger benefits, it is not just the passenger benefiting but the whole country will benefit from a better transport system (including road users as there should ultimately be less congestion, faster transport times for car users and trucks etc.).

We already have the most expensive railways in Europe for passengers. And they want us to pay more? FFS, they should really stamp 'mug' on our foreheads as we hand over our wallets.

One big issue is that privatisation and fragmentation means every company involved takes their cut and pushes up costs. You can't even get a passenger footbridge built now for what it cost him to re-open a whole new station in the 1990s!

(Got distracted there, 'him' means 'my Dad' - he re-opened Snow Hill station in Birmingham for a few hundred grand, less than the cost of a passenger footbridge under privatisation.)

Underwriting £50bn for infrastructure building projects

More backing for capital expenditure on the cards to go along with the railway modernisation. Very encouraging.

'nice'guy-

There's no end of things we 'should' be investing in. I took a walk today into my local town centre to buy a few things and it struck me how much things have changed for the worse in the last few years.

You're right, because, despite your constant complains some fantasy public spending splurge either historically or by Brown, there was no such thing. The public infrastructure in the UK is creaking and badly in need of investment.

So many stores have closed on our high street, Currys being the latest. Plenty of To-Let signs up with store fronts all run down. The only stores which seem to be thriving are Pound shops & charity stores.

Well yes, because nobody has any money to spend. The average household debt in the UK is several thousand pounds:

AVERAGE UK PERSONAL DEBT

Average household debt in the UK (excluding mortgages) is £7,975.

Average household debt in the UK (including mortgages) is £55,988.

The average amount owed per UK adult (including mortgages) was £29,634 in January. This was around 122% of average earnings.

www.debtsimple.co.uk/uk-debt-statistics.shtml

This is what people see day in, day out and I think it all contributes to the general lack of confidence.

What I see if a quasi-feudal society with Victorian levels of wealth inequality, with social problems which are ready to erupt and boil over at any minute.

The government underwriting is a double edged sword.

If it means more PFIs (like new hospitals under labour, where it cost management now £250 to have a socket installed ....) or PPPs then it is seriously bad news. It means that any profits will go to the private sector and any losses to the tax payer.

So risk is skewed and incentives are distorted.

UK government likes it though because it can be used as off balance sheet financing so the public accounts look better than they really are.

From what I've read, the way this government is underwriting the schemes should be a lot safer than the previous government's attempt (ie. PFI). It seems thankfully lessons have been learned.

However, there is some question mark over how much investment in reality this scheme will generate. As Stephanie Flanders from BBC News so succinctly puts it:

To qualify, a project has to be perfect in every possible respect, but somehow not quite perfect enough to get up and running entirely on its own

Kind of makes you wonder doesn't it? If a project was going to be such a sure fire winner, why banks would refuse to lend?

That said, even if it helps kick start a few major projects (and I hope it does) then it'll be worth it as the cost is fairly minimal.

Well, personally I'm baffled as to why we're spending money that the poor of our country desperately need just to survive, to upgrade a railway that few people can afford to use anyway. We're fairly well off, relatively speaking, and rail travel is out of our budget.

The trains are too expensive and always packed. They need to sort this out first, not raise the prices (again) to pay for more upgrades. I was under the impression that the price rises over the past x years were to pay for 'upgrades', so haven't commuters already paid for this over and over again?