….and why it’s not happening fast or big enough!
A version of this article appeared in the November 2024 edition of Rail Technology Magazine.
I presented at Connected Places Catapult event in Leeds in November on this subject and will also present at the UK 2025 Rail Summit, so this is a timely blog.
It’s now fifteen years since my first involvement with the Cardiff Capital Region Metro (or South Wales Metro) and just over 13 since my report, “A Metro for Wales Capital City Region” was published with the Cardiff Business Partnership and Institute of Welsh Affairs.
Figure 1 M Barry 2011 report, “A Metro for Wales’ Capital City Region”
That heretical idea is now in the final stages of construction and implementation. By late 2025 or early 2026, the transformation of the Core Valley Lines (CVL) should be complete. By then we will see shiny new tram trains running up and down the valleys serving Merthyr, Treherbert and Aberdare with 4tph, and up to 12tph running through Pontypridd toward Cardiff (other options may present themselves). Journey times will be reduced, and capacity & service frequency doubled.
Figure 2 TfW Metro tram-train depot at Taffs Well
It is also worth noting that my first report and early private sector “lobbying” led to the Welsh Government commissioned, “Metro Impact Study” in 2013. That report was a fundamental step on the journey and began to explore the wider economic development and regeneration benefits across the Cardiff Capital Region that a Metro could enable. I recommend such a step to all other city regions that need their public transport networks enhanced.
Figure 3 M Barry 2013 WG commissioned “Metro Impact Study”
The entire project was in fact based on a simple vision and a slide (See below) that I have used in all my Metro presentations since 2011. This for me neatly summarises the “Why Metro”, which the 2013 Metro Impact Study explored at the regional scale. I expand on the “Why Metro”? and the “Metro Vision” in my book “How to build a Metro”; I also cover “What is a Metro“. My May 2025 blog on a Metro vision also covered the same subject matter
Figure 4 M Barry Why Metro….
The challenge for the wider Cardiff Capital Region now, is to leverage this significant investment in public transit (to connect more people to more places) to enable wider economic development and regeneration – and especially Transit Oriented Development – around the Metro network. The current programme also provides the foundation for the necessary further Metro expansion through to the late 2020s and into the 2030s given our Net Zero Wales obligations require a major mode shift and to nearly treble Public Transport use by 2040.
Today I am considering more generally why we struggle to develop “Metros” in the UK. This is a stark question. Earlier in October I was invited to Bristol and made two presentations on the same day (again using the above slide) to well over a hundred people who have been campaigning for trams for Bristol and Bath. (See My presentation in Bristol Oct 2024)
Now it seems to me, that had Bristol been in France, it is inconceivable that a city region of over 1 million people would not already have an expansive tram network as part of a wider and integrated public transport system. Instead, we had the prospect of a one train per hour reopening of the Portishead line from Temple, Meads. I am not wishing to underplay the work on Metro West and recent new station openings like Ashley Down. But really, Bristol needs a high-quality rapid transit network with minimum service frequencies of 4tph and ideally more, as is the case in places like Newcastle and Manchester. There is a Transport Planning adage that says “no one waits 30 mins for a 10 min trip”; but for the most part 2tph is what Metro West will offer
In fact, Bristol like most of the UK’s major cities is undercapitalised in terms of its economic infrastructure, especially transport (including rail), when compared to comparable European cities. The same is true of Leeds, Leicester, Swansea, etc, and even large city regions that already have some rapid transit, like Manchester and Newcastle, are still some way behind places like Lyon, Hamburg, Milan, etc. This situation, as the Centre for Cities found, impacts economic output with UK city regions significantly underperforming their European counterparts.
Yes, it is commendable that in the 1.5m population, Cardiff Capital Region, Welsh Government via Transport for Wales, are leading a £1Bn plus transformation of the Core Valley Lines to create the South Wales (or Cardiff Capital Region) Metro. To be clear it is only because of the devolved Welsh Government that we have a Metro at all; I can confidently assert that UK Government would not have progressed this project.
However, the stark reality is that we probably need to spend another £2~3Bn (eg Cardiff Crossrail, x-valley, Marches lines upgrade, SWML upgrade) to really transform peoples mobility choices across the whole region (including connections to the Bristol and Swansea city regions as set out in the Western Gateway 2050 Rail Vision) and enable a greater economic and regenerative impact. Some of this potential in the Cardiff Capital Region was set out in the 2013 Metro Impact Study. However, given rail powers and funding are not devolved to Welsh Government, this can only happen under the current dysfunctional constitutional arrangements if the DfT/UK Gov lead the funding required. As I have stated here, given a likely £80Bn pipeline of rail capital investment in the English rail network to 2040, Wales ought to be in receipt of a proportionate ~£4Bn.
What is wrong with the UK that has resulted in its major city regions being so undercapitalised in terms of Public Transport? I think the answer is pretty clear. UK Governance, powers, funding decisions and accountability thereof, are far too centralised in and around Whitehall and the Treasury. I am sure the decision to value-engineer the Portishead line project down to 1tph was made not in Bristol, but in London.
That is a problem. If one looks at capital investment per capita across the UK (see figure below – which also overstates Welsh number given HMT allocate some capital investment in HS2 to Wales!), it is clear that London has been in receipt of far more investment than anywhere else in the UK – at least double in most cases. 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.
Figure 5 UK Capital spending per capita 2014-19
If we want to see the economies of the UKs major city regions begin to catch up with their counterparts in Europe they need powers, funding and accountability. This requires a constitutional rewiring of the UK to devolve power and funding to Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle etc. let alone Cardiff and Edinburgh.
Too many wrap themselves in the illusory and self-congratulatory pageantry of Westminster and Whitehall and fail to see this 19th Century system of governance is long past its sell by date. The only silver lining of Brexit is that it has, at last, started to expose the fallings of the UKs suboptimal “constitution” and how it holds back the economy on this island.
The UKs economic problems are at their root, constitutional and need to be addressed if we want to see a more equitable and balanced economy. You can’t level up (or whatever we are calling it now) through a little more cash being dispensed through 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. We have to formulaically invest equitably in economic infrastructure across the UKs major urban areas. This assertion is consistent with the key findings of the Eddington Report, commissioned by the UK Government in 2006, which was that:
- “there is clear evidence that a comprehensive and high-performing transport system is an important enabler of sustained economic prosperity”
- “transport networks support the productivity and success of urban areas and their catchments, by getting people to work, supporting productive labour markets and allowing businesses within the area to reap the benefits of agglomeration.”
So again, congratulations to Welsh Government and Transport for Wales. Despite not having rail powers (this needs to be addressed asap) they have progressed the South Wales Metro. We have gone from Metro heresy as set out in my 2011 report with the Cardiff Business Partnership and Institute of Welsh Affairs (A Metro for Wales’ Capital City Region), to be operating a Metro in 2025/6. This 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”.
So, yes, we are making progress in Wales. However, to enable economic development in all the UK s major city regions (including Bristol and Leeds) that is comparable with major European city regions, we have so much more to do. Three things are needed, in Wales and across the UK:
- 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 innovative means of funding capital investment – like the Versement in France)
- 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” with a focus on housing
- 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 have spent the last 3 years documenting my Metro journey from 2009 through to October 2024; how I saw the Cardiff Capital Region Metro, from its background and regional context, through vision development, advocacy and building political support, right up to Transport for Wales actually building and soon to be operating a Metro.
Version 1.1 of “How to build a Metro” is now on-line and available to all (with a chapter dedicated to Why Metro). I hope it provides some help to places like Bristol and Leeds which also need a step change in regional Public Transport connectivity.
Enjoy – and for more information please look at “How to build a Metro“, and for a what we need to do guide the final chapter
Mark Barry, November 2024
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