Aviation policy: off the rails at high speed (Taylor on Travel)

Aviation policy: off the rails at high speed

Spot the contradiction at the heart of Tory - OK coalition - transport policy. Transport secretary Philip Hammond tells the Financial Times: "Domestic flying in the UK will become, in time, a thing of the past."

That is a clear-enough statement of policy, consistent with the Tory line in opposition which was that trains - high-speed trains - would replace domestic flights, with fast rail links freeing capacity at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted to compensate for a ban on new runways.

Pre-election, the question was where would the money come from? Now we have the ban and the budget cuts, the question can be more focussed: how does this fit with the expected cancelling of orders for 1,400 new InterCity rail carriages to replace 30-year-old rolling stock, with the likely postponement of electrification of the Great Western Line (which passes Heathrow on its way in and out of Paddington) and with the question marks over London's Crossrail project linking Canary Wharf and Heathrow?

Add the news that the government is considering allowing rail fares to rise way above the rate of inflation from next year, and you know we are in the land of hokum.

By the way, rail operators may increase fares by the level of the retail price index (currently 5.1%) plus 1% a year as it is - a trick perpetrated by the last government which adopted the invariably lower inflation rate of the consumer price index (now 3.4%) as the official measure in other areas.

Of course, Hammond's "flying will be a thing of the past" claim might make some sense in a vacuum. But even if we assume high-speed rail tracks criss-crossing the country and running into Heathrow (let's not be greedy by imagining they will connect other airports) and with expensive high-speed rolling stock running on these, what about all those journeys that aren't on lines between Glasgow-Edinburgh and London?

Of course, the transport secretary will argue in public for ring-fencing cash for rail infrastructure. But wait until the autumn spending review and see who gets it. The Financial Times notes: "The presumption in Whitehall is that transport will be among the departments that bear the brunt of the pain."

Posted by Ian Taylor on June 28, 2010 6:35 PM | Permalink

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