We don't need big, showy rail projects—just fix the lines we have

Despite the sound and fury, both the Secretary of State and his Labour shadow effectively say the same thing—that Britain needs more transport infrastructure: roads, and especially rail. We should borrow, spend and build.

The only, and much-hyped, divergence comes on state ownership. Jeremy Corbyn—confirmed Bennite that he is—has made no secret of his wish to renationalise the railways. When you consider the appalling service that so many commuters experience, and the huge amount they pay for it, it’s easy to see why that view is gaining ground.

Nationalisation aside then, both left and right agree. The answer must include big-time investment in new, large rail projects. And both left and right are dead wrong. That is not the answer. In fact that’s an example of the political reflex at the heart of Britain’s transport problems.

Certainly, the rail network needs some investment. Old rolling stock should be replaced, and if services can be reinstated without too much effort, especially in the areas shut off by Beeching in the 1960s, then so much the better.

But the problem with big rail schemes is that they are precisely the sort of project that politicians love—the eagerness with which Boris Johnson associated himself with Crossrail is a case in point. They have grandeur, give secretaries of state the chance to appear in hi-vis jackets and what’s more, governments can do them.

Unlike other kinds of infrastructure project they don’t need complicated international input. Hinkey Point C, for example, the nuclear power station-cum money-sink on the Somerset coast, relies on a consortium of British, French and Chinese interests. It’s messy, highly political in a way that’s hard to control, and the numbers are terrifying.

Rail projects are much more manageable. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they come cheap. Crossrail itself will cost £14.8bn and that bill will, inevitably, be passed on to commuters through higher ticket prices.

What the politicians miss in all this, is that people don’t want big, showy projects—just ask anyone who’s lived through the rolling farce of the Great Western Railway electrification upgrade (I’m one). The first step for government should not be to build fancy new rail infrastructure, but to fix the network we already have. And, boy, does it need fixing. A survey by the consumer group Which? found that in 2016-17, rail passengers lost 3.6m hours due to delays on the railway.

Both government and opposition say Britain needs to connect its economic centres more efficiently in order to increase productivity, economic output and living standards. Well, perhaps. But consider those 3.6m lost hours. The implications for productivity of that lost time are huge. Why not sort that out first?

And really, should politicians fixate on getting people to move around so much anyway? Sure, we have got to go to work, but the vogue for ever more infrastructure betrays a fixation with a warped sense of modernity, and with the idea that, if only more people travel further, the economic benefits will flow.

But why encourage economically active people to get up and go elsewhere? Surely they are most needed where economic activity is weaker. If regional development is a priority for Britain, then the answer is not to encourage people to get up to London. Much more beneficial would be to encourage them to stay where they are, and for government to spend its money on the digital infrastructure that would allow them to do so. That way, economic activity would begin to seep out of the concentrated southeast and the hothouse centres of Manchester and Bristol, into less dynamic areas. It’s not an argument for “trickle down,” but for “spread out,” economics.

But all this it too prosaic to flatter government and the lure of building those big scale, big price-tag rail projects is irresistible. Commuters can look forward to a continuing upward spiral in ticket prices to pay for it all.

Which is a shame, because if government set itself the more modest goal of fixing the railways we already have, then millions of people would see better days and those 3.6m hours might be put to more productive use.