How I became a supporter of HS2

The first time I really ever heard much detail about the high speed rail project known as HS2 was about a decade ago when it was discussed at a Green Party conference. Being a fairly new member of the party, I tended to just agree and support Green Party policies. I bought into overly simple arguments against HS2. As the years have passed I've listened to other arguments and dived a bit deeper into HS2 and it has changed my view from somewhat opposing HS2 to somewhat supporting HS2. Let me explain why here.

Starting Assumptions

Before we begin there are some assumptions I hold when looking at these issues. Namely:

• We are in a climate emergency and rapidly need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Personal car travel and flights are 2 of the biggest contributors towards greenhouse gas emissions when it comes to transport and therefore reducing flights and car journeys is a very helpful step for lowing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Travel poverty is one of the biggest and most underestimated forms of poverty.
• Demand for travel will remain high in the future decades, even if a small portion of the population start to work from home.
• People will travel by car and by plane if public transport options are unreliable,  expensive and inconvenient. Improvements to public transport lead to people leaving their car at home and traveling by public transport instead.
• Rail (light and heavy) tends to be one of the quickest and most reliable forms of public transport.

All of these assumptions lead to my grand assumption that investing in improving rail links between towns and cities across the UK will both bring hundreds of thousands of people out of transport poverty and it will take hundreds of thousands of cars off the road which will play a vital role in the fight against climate change. Those are assumptions I have always held, even before HS2 was ever thought up. Feel free to disagree with my assumptions, but I hold these assumptions based on the evidence I have seen.

What I got wrong about HS2

There were a number of things I used to believe about the HS2 project, which I no longer believe. I used to believe the purpose of HS2 was to provide quicker routes between London and other major cities in the UK to benefit predominantly wealthy business executives. Manchester to London is already a fairly quick route, why does it need to be 20 minutes quicker I thought? Wouldn't it be better to spend that money on improving local and regional lines across the county? I believed some of the figures about how destructive building HS2 would be. I have since changed my mind on all of these over-simplified arguments against HS2 after looking into the issue further.

HS2 and the need to improve the rail network in the North

One of the biggest misconceptions about HS2 is that the benefit of the line will be focussed on London as it allows quicker access into the capital. In fact, many believe that the whole purpose of HS2 is to give rich business executives a quicker route to central London. But this over-simplistic take on HS2 misses out the real purpose and benefit of HS2.

HS2 is about freeing up capacity for local and regional services by removing long distance trains that only stop at major cities off the track that they share with local and regional lines so that those lines receive a massive increase in capacity. High speed trains require that all other trains get out of the way so sharing the same track massively reduces capacity. This is particularly noticeable around bottlenecks in major city stations such as Manchester Piccadilly,  Birmingham New Street and Leeds. Both Birmingham and Leeds are getting brand new stations serving HS2 which will only accelerate the effect of freeing up capacity on existing lines.

I accept and support that other things need to happen  to improve local and regional routes everywhere such as electrification of more lines and opening new lines where it makes sense. But that does nothing to solve the bottlenecks which restrict frequencies of trains, only new track will achieve this. At any rate, we can do all of these things at the same time. The only thing stopping us is political will.

Who will use the HS2 line?

Another big misconception about HS2 is that it will only benefit rich business executives will use HS2 to get into London quicker. This in fact is just not the case. The majority of long distance rail trips in the UK are for personal trips not business trips. Students going home to their family. People going to visit their friends. Football fans traveling to see their team play an away match. People spending a weekend in London while catching a show or a concert. Leisure trips to places all over the UK. This is the bulk of what the HS2 line itself will actually be used for. These are trips that are far too often done by car when they could easily be done by rail instead.

So the question of who will benefit from actually using the line isn't predominantly rich business people. It is predominantly working class and middle class people from all over England, including many working class people in London. We need to stop thinking of London as a place full of wealthy individuals who have more resources privilege and influence than the rest of us. The people of London are very similar to the people of Birmingham or Leeds or Glasgow. London is a diverse city with massive working class communities. HS2 has the potential to bring thousands of working class Londoners out of transport poverty. 

HS2's impact on rail fares

There can be no doubt that since the privatisation of rail in the 1990s that the cost of train tickets in the UK has gone up and up every single year. The affordability of rail is a major barrier for a lot of people to traveling by rail. Anti-HS2 campaigners argue that HS2 will be unaffordable as current rail tickets are, but that's not taking a look at the bigger picture.

There are many policies that we can change that would impact rail fares such as re-nationalise the railways, and we should absolutely do that. But one thing thing has a big impact on rail fares is the limited capacity on busy commuter lines. If the trains are full during peak times, then the government and rail companies can get away with charging more for tickets. As capacity increases, more frequent trains can run on these commuter lines and that means more seats to fill. Ticket prices will then fall in order to fill these extra seats. This is what HS2 can achieve due to the extra capacity created on many different lines up and down the country, particularly at bottlenecks around major cities. So while we continue to argue and fight for the re-nationalisation of the railways and for government to lower ticket prices,  HS2 will cause a lowering of ticket prices by increasing the supply of rail services in the UK.

What about the impact on flights?

HS2 currently plans to create 3 brand new stations at or near to airports. Manchester Airport is to get a second train station for HS2 while the HS2 station Birmingham Exchange will have a shuttlebus to Birmingham International Airport and the East Midlands Hub being 10km away from East Midlands airport has proposals for future rail links between the airport and the HS2 station. There have also been now abandoned plans to have spur of HS2 go off to Heathrow Airport from London.

For me these airport stations are the modt controversial part of HS2 and if it was down to me I would scrap the airport links. However, I have heard some arguments that these stations are a good thing for a few reasons.

International travel will return in a post-pandemic world. It won't quite be as frequent as it used to be and technology will reduce the need for international business trips. We can be fairly sure that the majority of international travel will continue to take place via flying. HS2 will reduce some flights between the Midlands, the North and other areas of the UK and mainland Europe. This is because HS2's final destination of London Euston is less than a 15 minute walk to St Pancras International station where HS1/the Eurostar goes to Paris onto Brussels. This makes it much quicker to travel from say Manchester or Leeds to Paris via trains. It will be a limited effect and it will depend on both the pricing of tickets and the ease of travel to Europe as post-Brexit talks with the EU change rules for UK citizens, and also vice versa. But the possibility will still be there to get a train in Manchester and then be in Spain or Italy or Germany on the same day. If the cost is the same or lower than flying it will become a much more attractive proposal to travel by rail instead of plane.

HS2 and other future high speed lines in Britain will really have a large impact on the number of domestic flights here in the UK. In the pre-pandemic more than one 5th of passengers flying from a UK airport was doing so to another UK airport. There were hundreds of domestic flights a day in the UK. HS2 and future high speed lines will reduce this massively for 2 main reasons.

Firstly, people traveling long distance in the UK will find it more reliable and accessible to travel by rail than by air. The people who do travel between cities within the UK rather the  taking a train do so for 2 reasons, for cost and for speed. HS2 addresses both cost and speed. Instead of someone traveling to say Manchester Airport, going through boarding and waiting for a flight to Heathrow , that flught taking an hour and then taking a train from Heathrow to Central London, that person could walk onto a scheduled HS2 train at Manchester Piccadilly and arrive at London Euston an hour and 15 minutes later, right I  Central London. If HS2 links up with future high speed lines to Glasgow and Edinburgh or high speed lines south to Bristol or even Exeter then this impact then the impact on reducing domestic flights will be much greater. Pre-pandemic there were around 170 flights a day between London and Glasgow or Edinburgh and high speed can make these flights redundant.

The other reason why HS2 will impact on domestic flights will be reducing connecting flights. If someone travels to London from America, they could find it cheaper or quicker to fly to Manchester and then fly from Manchester to London. Instead, this person could catch a train from the HS2 station at Manchester Airport and get to Central London quicker than catching a connecting flight from Manchester to London and then travelling to Central London from that airport.

But won't having more stations at more airports make flying in general more accessible? Well, yes it will, but not enough to have a significant impact on the number of people who take flights. People taking international flights would still be taking them regardless of HS2 being built. What it will do is change how people travel to these airports.

Along with these new HS2 stations at or near these airports, there are connected plans to expand existing light rail and bus networks to serve these new HS2 stations and better serve the airport. The predominant method of traveling to airports for international travellers is either by car or by taxi. With improvements to rail, light rail and bus connections it will mean a lot more people leave their cars at home and not bother with taxis. There is also scope to add cycle routes around the airports as well.

This will also make a huge difference for local workers and residents. Tens of thousands of people work at or next to airports in the UK many of whom are low paid workers, working in restaurants or hotels or retail or as cleaners. Tens of thousands of people also live very close to airports. Improving public transport links to airports will allow many people to leave their car at home and bring people out of transport poverty. I personally have noticed this with the Manchester Airport line of the Manchester Metrolink tram network being used by thousands of local residents and workers employed in connection to the airport. This tram line will be getting an extension to the new Manchester Interchange HS2 station, and then looping around the rest of Wythenshawe (the area of Manchester which the line runs through) to create a loop covering a much larger area including stopping at the local hospital.

Northern Powerhouse Rail and future high speed lines

Once HS2 is completed the next planned high speed rail line to open will be Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) otherwise know as HS3. This is a planned high speed line firstly from Liverpool to Manchester, and then from Manchester to Leeds. There are other plans connected with NPR such as using the HS2 line from Crewe to create a new high speed line to London but from Liverpool and upgrading the line between Manchester and Sheffield and onwards to Hull.

NPR proposals haven't been finalised but they rely on HS2 infrastructure in 2 main locations. Firstly, the Liverpool to Manchester leg of NPR uses HS2 tracks and stations starting somewhere between Crewe and Manchester Interchange/Airport. NPR will then use HS2 infrastructure all the way to Manchester Piccadilly. Secondly, the NPR  proposal to create a London to Liverpool high speed line relies on HS2 infrastructure between London and Crewe. This will then use NPR infrastructure on the way to the final station at Liverpool Lime Street. NPR will use the HS2 station at Manchester Airport (Manchester Interchange) and may well use the HS2 platforms at Manchester Piccadilly. The most likely proposal between Manchester and Liverpool stops at Warrington, but there is a proposal for NPR to stop at Crewe in which case it could share the HS2 platforms at Crewe. In short, Northern Powerhouse Rail will massively benefit from both using HS2 infrastructure and from the connections with HS2.

Northern Powerhouse Rail will have a similar impact as HS2 on freeing up capacity on existing lines. It will take the express lines between Liverpool and Manchester, and between Manchester and Leeds off the existing track shared with local commuter trains that stop at all the stations between the cities and put the trains on new track. A big difference though is that many people do commute daily between these cities and therefore quicker rail links will make a real difference when people are deciding to commute by rail or by car. Plus it will have another impact on lowering ticket prices by increasing capacity. Trains traveling from Liverpool to Leeds will take roughly 51 minutes instead of 1 hour and 46 minutes that they take at the moment. Those trains will also be 6 times an hour instead of the current 4 times an hour.

Other future high speed rail lines could really benefit from HS2. In fact, many could not work without HS2. High speed lines from Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh to cities in the south like London will use HS2 track. High speed lines from Bristol or Exeter to Newcastle or even to Scotland will use large parts of HS2 between Birmingham and Leeds (or possibly a new line through York instead of Leeds). This extended network of high speed lines will only further add to the transport revolution that HS2 begins. Domestic flights will be mostly killed off if we could get a train from Aberdeen to London in maybe 3 hours instead of the current 7 hours it takes.

What about the environmental destruction in building HS2?

I'd be slated quite heavily if I didn't address most people's biggest concern with HS2, the impact that building the line will have on the environment. This obviously is a big concern and one that we should try to address. Nobody wants to see trees cut down or any loss to biodiversity. Every decision about where the route will be should take this into account. Whilst some of the route is already being built upon, there's a lot of the route that work hasn't been started on and it would be possible to alter the route to avoid certain areas. Every decision comes with consequences though. Avoiding a woodland somewhere might result in needing to knock down some houses elsewhere. Alternatively, making the route so that it avoids all trees and all buildings may just make the line extremely impractical and so winding that it negates all the speed benefits from the line and therefore the demand for long distance rail trips might just carry on the existing overcrowded routes.

But the environmental impact of building the line was never my biggest concern, it was about allocation of funds to different parts of the rail network. In order to build any infrastructure project destruction of some kind needs to take place. For me it's all about asking do the benefits outweigh the negative impacts? Will we be in a worse place or a better place if it's built? Can we achieve the same result but for less destruction? Is the destruction as bad as it's claimed?

When I think about what I consider to be the alternative to upgrading and modernising our railways it is without a shadow of a doubt road building. We cannot get away from the fact that people want and need to travel and will continue to do so. If we don't improve public transport then the demand for driving and road building will continue as the main mode of travel. Building new motorways and roads will, like HS2, lead to woodlands being destroyed.

As it stands, about one 10,000th of the UK's ancient woodland is set to be destroyed by HS2 being built. HS2 will plant more trees than will be cut down (although ancient trees do far more good for soaking up CO2 than new young trees). There have been plans to build cycle infrastructure alongside parts of the HS2 routes, although some of this has been scaled back due to cost. I have come to the conclusion that HS2 has done what it can to easily reduce it's impact on the environment, that the alternative is to build more roads and that building HS2 will reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by taking tens of thousands of cars off the roads each year.

In Conclusion

HS2 is coming, whether we like it or not. Opposing HS2 will not stop that or have much impact on how it is to be built or be operated. A high speed rail network that links in with existing conventional rail across the country will bring about a public transport revolution that is much needed. It can take part at the same time as upgrading existing rail lines or building new lines. The money can be found to fund all of it. We just need the political will in this country and it can happen.

I believe that HS2 will bring tens of thousands of people out of transport poverty and that it will take tens of thousands of cars off the road. I believe strongly that this will be of a better benefit to the environment than not building it, despite the destruction involved in building HS2. Transport modal shift needs to happen and we need to get people out of their cars and off planes, and rail is one of the only ways to achieve this. HS2 and further improvements to the rail network will allow people to live further away from their work place and therefore will reduce the housing crisis in major cities.

HS2 isn't an issue I'm willing to die on. There's lots of other things that can be done to bring about a similar public transport revolution without building HS2 but all scenarios benefit from HS2 being built. All attempts at improving rail connectivity would only just benefit from having HS2. We absolutely need a public transport revolution in the UK and it is vital to invest in the rail network in order to achieve that. HS2 will only be a positive part of that.

So I've joined a group called Greens 4 HS2 who campaign to change the Green Party policy to support the development of HS2. Check out our website here: https://hs2.green/

Bicycle transport in Manchester

As a follow up to last week's post about public transport in Greater Manchester, let's talk about my favourite form of transport - bicycling. Bicycles are by far the most environmentally friendly way of travel (other than walking and running) and they keep you fit and healthy. As the phrase goes: One runs on money and makes you fat [car], one runs on fat and saves you money [bicycle]. I ride my bike almost every day, it's my transport to work. I couldn't do without cycling.

Why do I have such a big need for cycling? Well for me, since I don't drive, it is the only way I can get to work on time. Buses don't run early enough for me to get to work for 7am or run late enough for me to get home from work after 11:30pm. And if I was to travel to work via buses, I would have to take 2 buses to get there. Obviously, this can be solved by having a much better bus network. However, cycling is quicker than taking the bus. Even when following the routes of buses I am always quicker than buses due to buses stopping every few minutes for a minute or two to pick up passengers. It's £4 a day for a day rider of the bus and can be more expensive on the trams, and when you're earning around £10 from Job Seeker's Allowance as I was until recently, you can rarely afford to use public transport. Again, that can be solved by changing the public transport system. However it is still less costly both in money and in other resource terms if people travelled by bicycle than by public transport. It can also be quicker, especially for inner city travel.

Why do I believe there is a need for cycling throughout wider society? Well, along with improved public transport, bicycling is a key part in reducing reliance on cars. In the UK, most people own a car. In the world as a whole it's only roughly 14% of people who own a car, so cars are a massive luxury, yet people in Britain today take them for granted as something we have the right to own. Ultimately it is unsustainable for everyone to have a car and use it every single day. I recognise that some people have the need for a car (people who need it for work, some disabled people) and that there is a need to transport more items than you can carry on a bike or a public transport system so I am not opposed to completely getting rid of all cars. People still have transport needs, and I firmly believe bicycling can play an important role in achieving our transport needs. Bicycles, apart from being slower and having less storage to transport things, is as flexible as travelling by car. Unlike public transport you can travel from wherever you want to wherever you want whenever you want. You don't need to find a bus or rail stop, you don't need to wait for a bus or train or tram, and you don't need to pay a fee to travel. The fact that once you've paid for the bike, cycling is pretty much cost free and for lots of people that will mean they are pulled out of transport poverty.

So what's the situation with cycling in Manchester? Well for a long time not a lot happened. There are lots of bicycle lanes throughout the city, but most of them have been poorly looked after and often have cars parked on them. There are a few decent off-bike cycle paths such as the Fallowfield Loop, which while is great, has no lighting so is not used after dark, which in winter will mean people cannot cycle home on it. However, over the last few years some things have really started to happen. Last year the council and Transport for Greater Manchester opened up the Bike Hub, a storage space in the heart of the city centre where people can pay to keep their bike stored while they're at work with shower and changing facilities to wash the sweat away before going to work. However, it costs quite a high monthly fee to use this service and will only suit people who are in well paid jobs, but I suppose as it's making money for the council I don't have an issue with it so much. There are plans to make Oxford Road and some roads in the city centre for bicycle, bus and taxi use only, with segregated bike lanes and "floating bus stops" where the bike lanes travel behind bus stops so bicycles no longer need to overtake buses at their stops. This is a great development and will at least make lots of students feel confident to cycle. There are possible plans for a copy of the London "Boris Bikes" whereby people rent bikes from various points around the city and drop the bike back off at any of these points. Again, like with the Bike Hub I don't think this will do a huge amount to help improve things for people who have little money. There are plans to increase cycle parking at public transport stops, and this has started happening. There is now a new bike shelter at Oxford Road train station and I believe more of these are planned at bus stations, train stations and tram stops.

The problem with these things is they are only a small drop in the ocean. Massive changes need to take place to really make Manchester a cycling city. Bike hubs, the odd few streets with better cycle lanes and a few more bike rails at existing rail stops is not going to have that much of an impact because cycling will still be inaccessible for the vast majority of people. Here's what I believe needs to happen to really make our city a true cycling city:

• Make our roads, cycle paths, park paths, etc free of potholes so cyclists can have smooth rides without fear of punctures and buckled wheels (happened to me far too many times to remember).
• Really visible, entirely painted, well maintained, segregated if possible bike lanes throughout the whole cycle. Most cycle lanes are not well painted or maintained and are ignored by motor transport.
• Decent quality bike rails for parking, angled so that bikes of all heights can use them easily, in well lit visible locations throughout the entire city. Sheltered from the rain is possible. Covered by CCTV so that people can leave their bikes without fearing of it getting stolen. Lots more of these are neededs. Make it mandatory to have a good number of bike rails on high streets, outside shopping centres and retail parks.
• Allow bicycles on the Metrolink trams. This may require new carriages with bicycle storage so could be a longer term aim. This already happens in many cities throughout the world so I see no reason why this cannot happen in Manchester, and would lead to more people using the Metrolink and buying tickets. Also look into the possibility of having bikes on buses in rural areas as they do in the Lake District. 
• Properly enforce parking regulations like double yellow lines so that cars are not always parked on bike lanes, making it more dangerous for cyclists. Fining people who park on double yellow lines is one of the only effective ways I see this happening, which will make more money for the council. It will also mean hiring more parking inspectors.
• Better road systems in general. Sometimes having two general lanes makes it difficult to also have a bike lane, sometimes two lanes makes it better for cyclists. Sometimes one-way roads make it difficult for cyclists, sometimes one-way roads are essential for cyclists.
• Better car parking. I know this might seem like a backwards step (yeah, it probably is), but cars parking on bike lanes is a really bike problem, and perhaps there is no other solution than to create parking spaces elsewhere for those cars. Not too much though.
• Provide many free regular bicycle training sessions throughout the whole city. These could start off with cycling around a park, and could build up to cycling on roads to get new cyclists more confidence to ride on the roads. These could also include how to fix your bike.

There are also lots of things that need to happen nationally to make cycling better for all people:

• Better education in schools on cycling issues. Make it a bigger part of the curriculum.
• Tax-free bikes full stop. Discriminating against those out of work or those in work places without a tax-free bike system is not the right approach to tackling transport poverty. If planes do not have to pay tax on their fuel, why are bicycles taxed? No more VAT on bikes please! (Well, I think we should scrap VAT altogether but that's another blog post).
• Better education about the rights and safety of cyclists in general. Every council should have information on what rights cyclists have on the roads. Driving tests should involve more about the rights and safety of cyclists. I'd even like to see TV adverts promoting the safety of cyclists.
• Improved cycle storage on trains, so that we don't need to book in advance on certain services. Allow bikes on the Eurostar so that people can take their bikes to and from mainland Europe. I got the train recently all the way to Berlin, and if you could get your bike on the Eurostar from London to Paris I could have taken my bike all the way from Manchester to Berlin.
• Invest in the National Cycle Network, creating tons of new off-road cycle routes. But please do make them suitable for road bikes.
• Raise minimum wage to at least a living wage, scrap VAT, replace council tax with an addition to income tax, scrap tuition fees, close tax loops, make tax more egalitarian with more and steeper tax bands. Basically create a more equal society. This will mean more people who currently can only afford to pay £12 for a weekly bus pass will be able to afford spending £300+ in one go on a bicycle and buy accessories for the bike. It will also provide more than enough tax to fund all of this.

How can you get involved in improving cycling in Manchester? The last Friday of every month, meeting at Manchester Central Library at 6:00pm for a 6:30pm start is Critical Mass! Please come down and be a part of the biggest cycling movement in perhaps the whole north of England. Attend one of the many bike Fridays where people cycle to city centre from different parts of the city. Support the Greater Manchester Cycling Campaign. Support your local independent bicycle shop. Most importantly - get out on your bike, talk to your friends and work colleagues about cycling and be an ambassador for cycling.

More info:

• Bike Fridays - http://www.manchesterfoe.org.uk/loveyourbike/bikefriday/
• Transport for Greater Manchester's cycling page - http://cycling.tfgm.com/Pages/default.aspx
• Greater Manchester Cycling Campaign - http://www.gmcc.org.uk/
• Manchester Critical Mass - https://www.facebook.com/CriticalMassManchester
• Mad Cycle Lanes of Manchester - http://madcyclelanesofmanchester.blogspot.co.uk/

Heavy rail vs light rail vs buses. The Greater Manchester public transport debate.

Since public transport in Greater Manchester has changed quite a bit over the years and is set to change a lot again over the next few years I thought I'd weigh up the pros and cons of each type of public transport and give my views on what changes I'd like to see across Greater Manchester. Heavy rail is getting a lot of investment in Manchester with the Northern Hub, a grand project to improve links between cities in the North by a combination of methods including adding 2 new platforms at Piccadilly station, modernising and improving Victoria and Oxford Road train stations and electrifying lines between Manchester and other cities. The Metrolink tram system has had massive expansion in recent years and is set for a whole lot more expansion in the near future linking up more bits of Greater Manchester with, well, Manchester City Centre. There are planned changes for buses as well including making various busy roads in the City Centre only for buses, bikes and taxis. But which method of transport is the best solution to provide the transport needs for the people of Greater Manchester?

The need for better public transport links in Greater Manchester

While I will accept that Manchester has some of the best public transport link in the entire region, there is still a need and a demand for further improvements. A large metropolitan area such as Greater Manchester has many diverse transport needs. From people commuting to work at 6 am or earlier, to elderly people travelling to the local shops, to people going to any of the wide range of events, concerts, pubs, clubs, theatres and restaurants that Manchester has to offer. When I go out to watch bands live my last bus home is around 11:15 pm, which means that sometimes I have to leave the gig early to catch the bus and makes it difficult to stay out late. For people who work in the early hours of the morning or late at night sometimes there just isn't transport available at those hours and people often rely on taxis. Transport between east and west of south Manchester is terrible, I myself would have to catch 2 buses to get to work when it only takes me 15 minutes to travel by bicycle. It's actually often quicker for me to walk the 40 minutes to work than to wait for a bus. Transport in Manchester is largely focussed on getting people to and from Manchester City Centre and as a result transport between the different parts of Greater Manchester suffers. Improvements to public transport routes would make it possible for more people to travel further afield for work, shopping and leisure. A lack of transport is significant contributor towards poverty and lower standards of living. Manchester has some of the poorest areas in the country, and people often cannot afford to own and run a car and depend on public transport. Job Seekers are really restricted in the jobs they can apply for and the interviews they can attend when they are reliant on public transport. I really believe access to affordable, reliable and frequent public transport is key to a vibrant, thriving and happy city. It is also a key contributor towards reaching emission targets to combat climate change. The economic benefits are massive with more people able to travel for work and leisure with more spare money to spend at the same time. It will also attract more tourists at the same time who can visit the many attractions Greater Manchester has to offer.

Heavy rail transport

Trains have always been one of my favourite methods of transport. I love trains and train journeys. I've always wanted to see improvements to the rail network and extra lines opened as trains really do solve so many transport needs. I do think that trains are the best method of transport for travelling between cities and large towns. Build a new train station in a town that doesn't have one and you really are bringing a lot of people out of transport poverty. They're quick and efficient, and are cheaper than owning and travelling by car. Travelling between cities and large towns also enables trains to get to high speeds. Once the network has all been electrified, trains will be running at speeds up to 90 MPH. This is really great and efficient for travelling between cities but not as great for travelling to different parts of the same city. I do think they still hold an important part of inner city travel though. I used to live in Withington, about a 10 minute walk to Mauldeth Road train station, and from that station it was roughly an 11 minute journey to Piccadilly station, a big improvement on the 30 minutes it takes on the bus. A lot of the train lines to the airport, Stockport and parts of Cheshire stop at various parts of east Manchester such as Gorton, Levenshulme, Burnage and East Didsbury. Having these train stops in these places drastically cuts down travel time between those places and the city centre, as well as the other stops on those lines. It can also be cheaper if all you are doing is travelling only between places on those lines. There are some pretty big downsides to rail transport within the city though. Firstly, the lines are not well connected. If you live in Burnage and want to travel to Levenshulme or any stop on the same line as Levenshulme, which includes stops to Stockport and Crewe as well as stops to Buxton you have to change at Manchester Piccadilly. Connecting the lines via rail transport alone would be very difficult and would not be financially viable while travelling by bus between the lines adds a lot of time and cost onto the journey. The second big disadvantage is that unless your station is on a popular line, or various lines then train times will be fairly infrequent, relatively speaking. For example there are only 2 trains an hour between Burnage and Manchester Piccadilly. This greatly increases waiting times, and there isn't a huge amount that can be viably done to improve this as it is difficult to increase the capacity of big train lines. There also is a limit to the number of stations on these lines meaning that some people living on the line live reasonably far away from their nearest train station.

Some of the improvements to the rail services are great. The Northern Hub, the main rail improvement planned in Greater Manchester, in general will bring massive benefits to Manchester. The project is designed to reduce problems caused by what is known as the 'Manchester bottleneck' by increasing capacity of stations in Manchester and reducing journey times. Once the Northern Hub is completed journey times between Manchester and Preston/Blackpool, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and places in between will be reduced partly due to electrifying lines between cities so that trains can run at faster speeds. How much quicker will train journeys be? Well the 47 minute journey to Liverpool Lime Street will be reduced to 30 minutes, the 54 minute journey between Leeds and Manchester will be reduced to 40 minutes while journey times between Manchester and Chester will fall from 1 hour 3 minutes to 40 minutes. With capacity at both Piccadilly station (which is getting 2 new platforms that are not terminus) and Victoria station being increased, an extra 2 trains per hour between Manchester and Leeds and Liverpool will be running. For those who commute between cities for work this will bring great improvements to their lives, and will even make it possible for more people to be able to commute. A route between Piccadilly and Victoria stations is being build, the Ordsall Chord. This will enable some lines to stop at Victoria, onwards to Piccadilly (via Deansgate and Oxford Road) and potentially finishing at the airport. Piccadilly, Victoria, Oxford Road, Salford Cresent and Manchester Airport stations are all getting improvements. Piccadilly and Manchester Airport are getting new platforms while Victoria (voted the worst train station in the UK in 2009) is getting a massive facelift which includes new shops and a brand new modern roof. The main disadvantage I can see from the Northern Hub is that a lot of services, particularly Liverpool to Leeds/York via Manchester will be switched from Piccadilly station to Victoria station, partly in order to further reduce journey times and to increase overall capacity of both stations. The problem with this at the moment is that Piccadilly station has a lot more transport links than Victoria and so is easier to get to for a lot of people. However, links to Victoria are improving and as Victoria becomes more used it will become more viable for buses and trams to better serve Victoria station.

While we're talking about heavy rail, it's important to mention HS2. HS2 needs to be scrapped. There is a desperate need for investment in our rail network, but there is no desperate need for shorter journeys from Manchester or Birmingham to London. Spending those billions on either opening new rail lines, electrification of more existing lines or increasing the capacity of existing lines in other ways is what's really needed and what will really help people who need to travel by train. Let's not also forget that HS2 may well lead to other nearby areas losing services to London, such as Crewe and Liverpool where HS2 will not be going to.

Light rail/trams/The Metrolink

I recently spent a week in Berlin. Berlin has amazing public transport services - heavy trains, light trains, underground trains and buses. Looking at the routes in the Berlin transport network, it reminded me of both London and Manchester. Manchester is the only place in the UK outside of London which has a big and expanding light rail network, the Manchester Metrolink. There are major differences between the transport network in Berlin and Manchester though as you'd obviously expect. Greater Manchester has one major city with one single city centre surrounded by commuter towns with their town centres, and major transport links mostly focus in linking the smaller towns up with the larger city via the city centre. Berlin, like London, doesn't have just one small area it can call it's 'city centre'. Like London, Berlin is more like a collection of towns each with their own communities and unique town/city centres so transport routes are more diverse. In Greater Manchester this leads to one big issue with the light rail network - all the  lines on the Metrolink are just between one part of Greater Manchester and Manchester City Centre. There is no linking up different parts of Greater Manchester together, unless of course it is on the way to Manchester City Centre. You can of course change at Manchester City Centre and get on another line and go somewhere else in Greater Manchester, but the detour via city centre makes the journey often a lot longer and more expensive. What I would like to see with the Metrolink is greater connections between parts of Greater Manchester, and I see that as it's greatest potential strength. Light rail is somewhere between heavy rail and buses in terms of journey times versus frequency of stops. The more stops a public transport method has, the more accessible it is, but also the slower it is. It is impossible to serve lots of inner city areas via rail and get to 90 MPH speeds that heavy rail can reach and is difficult to build lots of train stations close to one another, but I don't think this means we need to rely on buses for inner city transport. Light rail offers a faster way to travel than buses and a more frequent service than trains stopping at more stops along the way. Tram stops are much easier to build than train stations.

The Metrolink originally just served Bury to city centre and Altrincham to city centre when it opened in 1992. In 1999 the line connecting Eccles to the city centre via the existing Cornbrook stop opened. It stayed this way for a further 12 years until the South Manchester line was opened as far as Chorlton and St Werburgh's Road. This was part of a bigger plan to greatly expand the network over the next few years. Further 4 lines were planned to be opened within the following 5 years. Rochdale via Oldham line was opened in 2012. However, the Rochdale via Oldham line wasn't so much as an expansion of the rail network as a conversion from heavy rail to light rail. This was advantages and disadvantages. There are now lots more stops between Rochdale, Oldham and Manchester City Centre serving many people who lived far away from the original train stations, however journey times between Oldham and Manchester have significantly increased. Furthermore the people of Oldham were without a rail service for 3 years while the line was converted to light rail. In 2013 the South Manchester line was extended to East Didsbury and the line from Piccadilly to Ashton was opened. A line from Manchester Airport to the city centre via Wythenshawe and the existing St Werburgh's Road stop is due to open in 2015 but could open later in 2014. There are various proposed expansions of the Metrolink, most likely are the Trafford line, which will go from the Pomona stop (currently on the Eccles line) to the Trafford Centre via Trafford Park and extending the East Didsbury line to Stockport. There is also proposals for tram-trains to be introduced, where tram-trains can be used both on tram tracks and train tracks, and the possibilities that come with that idea are huge.

There are some disadvantages to light rail. Light rail, like heavy rail requires rail tracks to be built. While with light rail you can have tracks built on roads, that really restricts how effective the service is. If trams run on roads it restricts how frequent the trams are and slows down all other transport on the roads while the trams are running through. This means that light rail works best off-road and luckily Manchester still has a lot of it's old rail network that was closed after the Beeching report in the 1970s that can be used for the Metrolink. However even with various other off-road routes that Greater Manchester potentially has that still is not enough to full-fill all the transport needs. I could see potentially the councils and governments eventually making compulsory purchase orders on many disused or underused non-residential sites and also brownfield sites to expend the Metrolink system. Until then I don't see how lots of areas will be served by public transport without buses.

Something worth considering about heavy rail versus light rail is that light rail increases journey times between places because of lower speeds and increasing number of stops. Yes you can reach more people because of extra stops, but it greatly increases journey times between really populated areas. Take the East Didsbury line, Chorlton is by far the most popular stop on the line. I usually notice perhaps 30 or 40 people getting on at Chorlton whereas other stops might have about 10 people getting on. Journey times between Chorlton station and Market Street Metrolink stop are 16 minutes on the Metrolink whereas journey times between Levenshulme train station and Piccadilly station are only 5 minutes via train and is a similar distance. Would the East Didsbury line be better served as a heavy rail line with fewer stops and much less travel times? I'm not sure. If you just had 3 or 4 stops between East Didsbury and Deansgate rather than the current 10 stops you might be able to shorten that 16 minutes to 5 minutes perhaps, and perhaps that would be better. It would make it less accessible for hundreds if not thousands of people. Same goes for the Bury line. Before the Victoria Metrolink stop temporarily closed for refurbishment took about 23 minutes to get from Bury to Victoria train station on the Metrolink stopping at 9 stops in between. If it was a heavy rail line with perhaps no more than 3 or 4 stops between Bury and Victoria journey times might be reduced to perhaps only 12 or 15 minutes rather than 23 minutes. I'm undecided about what is overall more liberating to more people, shorter journey times in more populated areas and less services in less populated areas, or more services in less populated areas but longer journey times for people in well populated areas. Overall, considering that the alternative is buses the Metrolink is a nice balance between the two.

One thing that is interesting about the Manchester Metrolink is that it is nationalised. Sort of. It is operated by the RATP Group (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens) which is a French nationalised company owned by the French government. This makes me both happy and sad. I'm happy that some of the profit from the Metrolink is going to a public sector, I'm just saddened that we cannot make this a British public-owned and run company/industry so that the profits can be put back into public services in our own country. But public ownership of industries or certain industries is a whole other topic I may cover at another date on this blog. All I will say now is that there is a lot of profit and potential profit with public transport in the UK and I would much rather that profit was going to the public-sector so that government and councils have more money to spend on services that are useful to people rather than going to business owners, directors and shareholders. Or it could be invested into improving our public transport system, perhaps decreasing ticket fares.

Buses

Buses are the main form of transport in Greater Manchester that link up all the different areas in Greater Manchester. Most other forms of transport simply take you to Manchester City Centre. Buses are the easiest form of transport to expand as bus stops are easy and cheap to put up in almost any road. However buses are also the slowest of the main forms of public transport because they have to follow the normal traffic on the roads, traffic lights and there's usually a bus stop every few hundred metres, and sometimes they take long and winding routes. The fact that there are so many bus stops does make buses the most accessible in terms of how close you are to the service. The vast majority of people in Greater Manchester are within walking distance of their closest bus stop. However, buses are also know for being one of the most unreliable forms of public transport out there. Because they run on ordinary roads and only have their own bus lanes in highly populated areas close to town centres and city centres, and also because the driver has to stop at each stop and sell tickets to most of the passengers boarding means that it's much more difficult for buses to run on time. In large parts of Manchester, especially around Oxford Road/Wilmslow Road this isn't so much of an issue because at peak times there are several buses a minute. But for areas in Greater Manchester where there is only a couple of buses an hour, being 10 or 15 minutes late is a regular frustration and can even make people late for work.

There are plans to help reduce congestion and journey times around the city centre by making some of the roads for the use of buses, bicycles and taxis only. The plans include turning large sections of Oxford Road, particularly at the universities into bus, bicycle and taxi only roads, as well changing some roads in the city centre to allow better bus links between Piccadilly Gardens and Shudehill bus stations. Transport for Greater Manchester have produced 2 brilliant videos on the proposals. This video for the the proposed changes to Oxford Road:

The following video is on the proposed changes to the city centre:

 

Conclusion

It seems to me that a wide range of public transport methods are needed across Greater Manchester. Ultimately we need a well connected transport network with trains linking major populated areas such as cities and big towns, trams linking up as many significant parts of Greater Manchester as realistically possible and buses filling the gaps that cannot be filled by rail including connecting the different tram and train lines. An important change, if possible, to how the Metrolink works is allowing bicycles onto trams to help cyclists shorten their journey times. An area all forms of public transport needs is to provide more services, later services and earlier services. There is a clear demand for better public transport services late at night and early in the morning. So I want to see more heavy and light rail journeys being made so that people can save time and perhaps even money travelling to wherever it is that they need to go. While bus journeys do have their advantages, using buses for longer journeys takes a lot of time that could be cut by introducing more tram and even train lines. Currently around 80% of public transport journeys in Greater Manchester are on buses. It takes me half an hour to travel from Whalley Range where I live to city centre, that's an hour return trip, and Whalley Range isn't that far from the city centre. If I lived next to my closest tram stop, that would be cut by over a third to a 38 minute round trip giving me over 20 minutes more free time to enjoy life. I'm certain the same could be said for many tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Greater Manchester who would benefit massively from a better public transport system. Cyclists, pedestrians and even motorists would benefit from a better public transport system as well. Better public transport leads to less people using cars, which makes the roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians alike while reducing traffic jams and journey times for remaining motorists.

A huge factor in defeating transport poverty is to integrate the ticketing system into one smart card, similar to London's Oyster Card and simplify the pricing so that using multiple services does not become unaffordable. Currently it is cheaper to get a bus pass for one bus provider and to just use that bus service, whereas a connected transport network works best if people use a wide range of transport methods. If you can get a bus to your nearest tram or train station and use rail to get where you need to, that will ultimately save time. If we can have a smart card that has an upper limit on daily, weekly and monthly spending it will make this financially viable. Currently there are 2 different systems that run like this, the System One Travelcard, which is mostly for buses but can also be used on trains and trams, and the soon to be launched 'get me there'. The problem with System One Travelcards at the moment is that they are for passes only and I think they are only in paper ticket format. get me there launches this year for Metrolink users. Next year get me there will be available to use on buses, and at some point after that you will be able to use get me there cards for train journeys within Greater Manchester. I'm not sure how get me there will work out pricewise but I sure do hope it will drastically reduce travel costs. When it's fully finished it will be pretty much just like the Oyster card, but for Greater Manchester and System One Travelcards will stop being used in Greater Manchester. While I would like to see public transport be free for everyone, that is a massive challenge that first requires nationalisation of our public transport which I believe we are ready for. In the mean time to improve public transport it helps if there are economic benefits.