Wales, Metro, TOD & Devolution…

To support my presentation at a Wales Week in London event on the South Wales Metro on 27^th February, I have penned a few words about the Cardiff Capital Region Metro. It also appeared in a shorter form in Transport Times on February 13th, 2024. You can also download the presentation I used here

PS I have added a link to the video recording of the event.

The Cardiff Capital Region is getting a Metro. By the end of 2025 most of the Core Valley Lines (CVL) north of Cardiff will have been upgraded and enhanced to allow new electric Stadler Tram-trains and Tri-mode FLIRTS to operate from Cardiff to/from Merthyr, Aberdare, Treherbert, Rhymney and Barry.

In most cases services of at least 4tph, quicker journeys and a doubling of network capacity will transform the passenger experience. Up to 12 tram-trains per hour from Pontypridd to Cardiff in just over 20 minutes! That is pretty amazing and so credit to Welsh Government (WG) and Transport for Wales(TfW), for delivering this £1Bn+ project, especially given that rail powers are not devolved. A lot of people have been and still are, working very hard to make this happen; in due course they will all need a proverbial “pat on the back”.

Figure 1 One of the first Stadler Tram-trains arriving at Taffs Well Depot

Figure 2 TfW Taffs Well Tram-train Depot (Credit TfW)

Yes, there have been some issues and cost overruns, and yes there are still some glaring omission (especially getting 4tph on all the rail lines in Cardiff.[i]). However, to go from Metro heresy set out in my 2011 report Figure 3 with the Cardiff Business Partnership and Institute of Welsh Affairs[ii], to be operating a Metro in 2025 is remarkably quick in global terms for a major transport infrastructure project. What we have done encapsulates American Architect Daniel Burnham’s famous quote,

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.

Figure 3 M Barry, IWA & CBP, 2011, “A Metro for Wales’ Capital City Region“

The benefits to the Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) are not be understated. Primarily providing more people the option of travelling around southeast Wales, and especially up and down the valleys north of Cardiff, in something other than a car. Welsh Government’s commitment to the South Wales Metro has also stimulated a further small but welcome contribution from the UK Government for the first phase of Cardiff Councils, “Cardiff Crossrail”[iii] project which will enable wider development and regeneration benefits in Cardiff Bay. More important perhaps that project, when connected to the west and the City Line, will provide much more overall CVL network capacity and redundancy.

Nor can we ignore the need to decarbonise. The Climate Challenge is very real. In 2023 we saw: Greenhouse gas levels at a record high; Global temperatures at a record high; Sea level rise at record high; Antarctic sea ice at a record low.

So, Welsh Government’s Net Zero mode shift targets[iv] are very stretching, but necessary given the unarguable implications of climate change. The target requires 40% more public transport in Wales by 2030 and double again by 2040. You can’t achieve that by building more roads!

Welsh Government policy now reflects a greater awareness of the costs and wider negative impacts of car dependency [v]. For example, the estimated cost of the 170,000 Road Traffic Accidents (inc. 1,700 fatalities) in the UK each year (if unreported costs are included) is well over £30Bn according to the DfT. Then add poor air quality resulting in 30,000 premature deaths per year, induced demand low density developmental sprawl and the hollowing out of high street through out-of-town office and retail, and ever more congestion. Reducing car dependency is essential

I would also add, I am not anti-car (we have one!). I am anti the current situation where so many people are dependent on car use and have limited choice or opportunity to do something different. This is not a quick fix.

More strategically, I also hope that WG and the CCR will fully embrace Transit Oriented Development (TOD)[vi], especially focused around this new Metro network. I have always said the biggest benefits of the South Wales Metro (or the Cardiff Capital Region Metro) are not just the obvious and easy to see and count transport user benefits; they are the wider economic and regeneration benefits that can be enabled by it[vii]. So, densification of development, especially housing, around transport hubs, relocation of more jobs and public services to public transport connected places (eg like Cardiff Parkway as well as Cardiff City Centre, Pontypridd, etc) and all combined with efforts at physical and social regeneration in places that have often been overlooked following the dislocating impact of losing so many major heavy industries over the last 50 years.

To help, I am calling for a “Metro Development Corporation” that can lead on curating plans and working in partnership with the private sector and WG/TfW to bring forward the development change at scale we need. In this context we can and should also explore further innovate forms of finance such as land value capture, TiF, etc.

Whilst in Wales WG/TfW have made great Metro progress in south east Wales, we are now stymied and metro plans in places like Swansea [viii] will go no further. It is remarkable that what I consider to be WGs most important and impactful project, the South Wales Metro, is in a non-devolved area. Yet WG are spending nearly £1Bn with a small amount (est less than £200m from UK Gov and a similar amount from European Regional Development Fund); this is in addition to the £800M of new rolling stock for the wider Wales and Borders franchise. I also can state quiet clearly, despite this being a Westminster responsibility, the DfT or UK Gov would not have led this initiative or paid for it (as perhaps they should do as custodians of our railway). Whilst I welcome recent UK Gov commitments re Metro Central, SWML, NWML, Cardiff Crossrail etc these are just relatively small tactical interventions; the strategic problem is unresolved.

So, the stark truth today, is that under the current arrangements WG can do no more without a constitutional change that sees rail powers vested with WG and all English rail spend barnettised. This is the case for Scotland and Northern Ireland, so why not Wales? Please dont respond with, “but the porous border”, etc. How does Europe manage, borders are commonplace as is cross border infrastructure and those countries manage maintenance of, and investment in those assets sensibly and equitably. Currently Wales has no say.

I have written at length and appeared at Committees at Westminster and the Senedd (with data and evidence) on this issue multiple times over the last 12 years. I actually published a draft chapter^{^[ix]} of my “metro book” on the failings of the UK rail industry eco system vis a vis enhancement investment (or lack thereof) in Wales just a few weeks ago. Please read that – if I have got it wrong I am happy to be corrected. The current arrangements have cost Wales at least £3Bn in rail enhancement investment since 2000, that figure will double by 2040 without change. I think this issue impacts the regions of England as well.

In recent years, given the generational economic dislocation of losing a primary industry, places like southeast Wales have been the subject of political “levelling up” rhetoric. Whilst the attention is welcome, I suspect few people fully appreciate the scale of the challenge to actually deliver on so may easy political promises.

“Levelling Up” raises some serious constitutional questions and has to go beyond the shallow populist rhetoric we have become accustomed to over the last few years. You can’t “level up” by handing out a little more cash though politically compromised Westminster largesse. A handout economy and a handout constitution based entirely around Westminster and Whitehall, has not and can never really work for everyone and every place on this island, especially in Wales but equally true of Leeds, Bristol and Manchester.

One of the problems for the UK it seems to me, is that major investment decisions related to essential economic infrastructure (esp. rail) are made by a small number of senior officials and politicians in and around Number 10, Whitehall and The Treasury. This is one of the reasons I believe, why capital spending per capita^[x] is typically higher in London than anywhere else in the UK^[xi] (and the figures for Wales are overstated). So, it’s no surprise that higher GDP/capita has followed that investment, with everywhere else in the UK appearing to lag behind, so exacerbating national and regional imbalances in the UK economy. However, to note I do have serious concerns about how we calculate GDP[xii] – especially the omission of so many damaging negative externalities.

Figure 4 From HMT Capital Spending per capita

The value engineered reopening of the Portishead line in Bristol for one train an hour and the lack of mass transit system in Leeds are further symptoms of this centralisation. Both cities should have had tram networks 30 years ago! Now, the butchering of HS2 has left a rump project with 80% of the costs but perhaps only 20% of the benefits of the original scheme which would have been north of Birmingham. All these provide evidence we need to relocate power, funding and accountability out of London. Eddington saw this in in his 2007 transport study which noted that intra-regional movement was as, if not more important, to the economy than inter – city. Without localising powers, funding and yes accountability we can never “level up” and as Marquand set out in his famous 1936 book[xiii], the economy of southeast Wales has needed levelling up since the 1930s.

As an example, of what is possible we can look back to the 1970s and French Government legislation to enable local authorities the powers to levy a payroll tax on businesses and public bodies in urban areas to fund public transport and active travel. The proliferation of light rail systems in France since then, and the massive support of public transport in Paris, is as a direct consequence of that measure, called the “Versement Transport”^[xiv]. This more enlightened view is not yet shared by Whitehall, and Wales does not have all the statutory powers to replicate that approach.

To conclude, yes, we are making progress in Wales, but we still have so much more to do. For me three things are needed, in Wales and across the UK:

1 – More devolved powers and funding over economic infrastructure (esp rail in Wales) to be vested around the nations and regions and away from London (this may also mean new and more local innovate means of funding capital investment – like the Versement in France)

2 – Strong focus on Transit Oriented Development aligned to investment in Public Transport, especially in our major urban areas– and supported where appropriate with “Metro Development Corporations”

3 – An honest reckoning of the negative externalities of car dependency and the need for measures to reduce the “subsidy” car users and owners currently receive -especially in urban areas where we should focus investment on PT/AT alternatives.

[i] M Barry, 2023 Metro Moans for 2023… – Mark Barry (swalesmetroprof.blog)

[ii] Mark Barry IWA/CBP, 2011, “A Metro for Wales Capital City Region – Connecting Cardiff, Newport and the Valleys” iwa-metroreport.pdf

[iii] M Barry 2019, A Cardiff Crossrail… – Mark Barry (swalesmetroprof.blog)

[iv] Welsh Government, 2021, Net Zero Wales | GOV.WALES

[v] M Barry, 2023 Cars, Congestion, Health and Road Pricing… – Mark Barry (swalesmetroprof.blog)

Welsh Gov, 2021, Small Towns, Big Issues: independent research report | GOV.WALES

[vi] DCFW/M Barry 2019 Transit Oriented Development in the Cardiff Capital Region #2

[vii] M Barry 2018 Metro & Me, October 2018 – Mark Barry (swalesmetroprof.blog)

[viii] M Barry, 2024, No rail devolution? No Swansea Bay Metro! – Mark Barry (swalesmetroprof.blog)

[ix] M Barry, 2024 The UK rail industry, Wales & HS2 – Mark Barry (swalesmetroprof.blog)

[x] House of Commons Library, 2022 Public spending by country and region – House of Commons Library

[xi] HMT, Country and Regional Analysis 2019, CRA_2019