Richard Johnstone examines the nightmare of Scotland’s transport network
The M74 extension, approved by the Scottish Government in February, neatly illustrates the problems with the Scottish transport system.
First proposed as a ring road in 1945, the completion of the road by 2011 encapsulates the difficulties in getting transport projects off the ground.
It is indicative of what Tavish Scott, the former transport minister, says was the difficulty with pre-devolution transport planning in Scotland.
“In broad terms, there had been no investment in Scotland’s transport system for a considerable period, a bit of firefighting here and there but no sustained capital investment,” he said.
Stephen Lockley, who was director general of the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive from 1986 to 1997, says that “completing the M74 will reduce the problems on the M8, which was very much part of Strathclyde’s philosophy at the time [he was there]. There’s not a lot of point in having a four-mile-long motorway as the M74 now is in Glasgow and terminating it with nowhere for the traffic to go, at least the other four miles will connect it on the other side.”
Projects like this can take so long to get going, simply because “they’re expensive, and so money has to be found, and if you find the money for that then you can’t spend it on something else,” he says
He added that “in the UK at large, but in Scotland in particular, we haven’t had the investment over the years that we should have had, and that’s a great difficulty”. This lack of investment, he argues, has been down to a “fetish” regarding a fear of public sector borrowing, stemming from the late 70s financial crisis.
“It started 30 years ago when we had financial problems and the IMF came in and clamped down hard on it. In my days in Strathclyde, the capital expenditure, the total amount of money we were allowed to borrow, actually reduced from the late-70s to the mid-90s, and when we got to the mid-90s, it was actually less than half. That’s why we did far fewer capital projects.” This, he explains, led to the shelving of plans for a Glasgow tram system.
“In the 1970s, we had much more significant capital expenditure and funding. In Strathclyde, they finished the M8 motorway through Glasgow, they reopened the Argyle line low level, and the underground was modernised.”
He adds the example of Germany and France, countries which have higher public sector borrowing - close to 60 per cent of GDP. “They’re not that keen on it, but they don’t mind it, and that’s why they have much more grandiose transport projects than we do, because they’ve been able to give much more public sector finance to it than we’ve felt we can over the years. The TGV in France is a national monument, and it’s seen with a sense of emotion, and we’ve never had that over here.”
Devolution, then, inherited a less than enviable transport policy, which in Scott’s words, was “all about roads”.
“I think broadly, it is absolutely the case that there had been some transport firefighting on roads policy, nothing on public transport, no investment in the railways, no sustained consideration of how we encourage people to move from the car to good quality, efficient, reliable public transport.
“I think it’s important to remember that all the Westminster politicians came through the Thatcher years, when the mantra was the bus wasn’t worth getting on, that if you aspire in society, aspire to be someone who is a better person, you must aspire to own a car, [then] a bigger car, and a bigger car again. What we said, as Liberal Democrats and what the coalition said from 1999 onwards, is that of course, you’ve got to have road investment, which we continued, but we must at least make public transport an attractive alternative to people who can use it, otherwise, the roads are going to just fill up and we’ll have gridlock all over Central Scotland.”
Since devolution, the transport system is “definitely moving in the right direction,” says Derek Elder, the director for the Institution of Civil Engineers in Scotland.
The completion of the M74, he said, “was a case of, can we just have a decision on this, because whatever everybody needed to do was going to be dependent on the outcome of that decision”.
“Speaking to our members that are involved in the transportation side of things, it seemed to be the case that completing that motorway network alleviated some of the major congestion coming into and out of Glasgow at the peak times, simply because it will give another alternative route.
“I know that there are arguments about traffic, but frankly, the situation in the Glasgow area is that it is gridlocked for quite a lot of the time now. We’re running, at some times in the day, especially in the Central Belt, very close or sometimes beyond capacity. We can’t wish that away, and they do have to be dealt with.”
He also highlights projects such as the upcoming trail of a road-equivalent tariff on ferries in the Western Isles and the decision by the last Executive to build the Borders rail link as examples where Scotland’s transport system has advanced since 1999. “The decision to institute a rail link to an area which while geographically close to the Central Belt, has been, in transport terms, quite dislocated from it, again shows transport issues are being taken more seriously.
“Rail generally has had very strong support in Scotland, from the previous government and the current government,” he says, and he points to the creation of Transport Scotland as a dedicated road and rail delivery body as being “quite welcome because it takes it out of the direct control of government”.
“It’s not a direct government department, it’s a quango, but it’s got a very strict remit, the road and rail remit to not just make it work but to deliver the new projects and to make it work better.”
Setting up such institutional bodies – Transport Scotland and the seven regional transport partnerships – was one of the major transport policies of the last Executive. Scott said he would accept that “in many ways in the first two years of devolution, nothing happened, at that stage it was how do we plan, how do we create a budget that looks to the future,” but adds that: “Since 1999, the programme was set out, and it was recognised by government – both the previous administration and the present one – that because these are often ten-year projects and ten-year investment periods, if you’re going to be strong on delivering transport projects, you have to put in sustained amounts of money over those kinds of periods. We started that process, we’ll see whether the current administration continues it.”
Elder says it was also positive that the last Scottish Executive published a National Transport Strategy, and Scott says there were two principle objectives of that strategy.
“One was to improve the corridor connections across Scotland where those connections are not working at the moment, whether because of gridlock, or the road system, or because public transport can’t cope with the growth, for example, in rail. The second principle objective was to tackle climate change. Given how much transport does contribute to climate change, we need to have a transport system that understands and seeks to address that.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government confirmed that the Scottish Government supports the underpinning principles of the NTS, adding: “We are developing a delivery plan to provide the opportunity for us to clarify our priorities within the strategy. This plan, which is due to be published in the summer, will also allow us to integrate a number of additional Government transport commitments – resulting in a comprehensive delivery plan of Scottish transport priorities, policies and initiatives.
“The National Transport Strategy Delivery Plan will set out the actions we will take within the context of the national performance framework, to support the purpose of this Government, deliver the national outcomes and realise the NTS strategic outcomes.”
The creation of Transport Scotland is a big development, agrees Lockley, now chairman of the Scottish Policy Group of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.
“It’s looking like a great development. The regional transport partnerships conceptually, were trying to capture what was lost with the regional councils, but in practice, without these direct funding streams to themselves, of both capital funding and revenue, they can’t do their job properly. I would like to see them with more teeth.”
Elder agrees that “Transport Scotland gives a focal point” to plans for the improvement in Scotland’s transport infrastructure. “I get the sense that it’s very much seen as a positive lift to have that organisation there, seen as separately identifiable from the overall mass of the Government, it’s able to focus on the delivery of things.”
Iain Ferguson, the policy executive with CBI Scotland, also says there have been “a raft” of transport projects in recent years that have been given the go ahead. He said: “There’s been unprecedented spending in recent years and it could be considered a golden era of spending in transport.”
This is backed up by research from Professor Austin Smyth, the head of the transport studies department at the University of Westminster.
He says that spending levels in transport in Scotland are vastly higher than any other devolved region in the UK, apart from London. Spending on transport projects in Scotland, both capital and current, was more than six times higher than Northern Ireland, and almost three times higher than that spent in Wales, in 2006/07.
This has increased most notably since 2001/02, when the spending in relation to Northern Ireland was almost four times higher, and compared to Wales, it was less than double. “Spending has increased at a much faster rate than in either Wales or Northern Ireland, and the spending levels are far higher when you allow for population,” Smyth says.
“This reflects the prominence given to transport by the Scottish Executive and Scottish Government compared to the devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland. Transport’s been given a relatively greater prominence in Scotland than in either of those two areas, and the only place that’s given it even greater prominence is London, and for different reasons [such as franchised bus services].”
Lockley says that following the M74 completion, the days of motorway building in Central Scotland will be over.
“I think when the M74 is finished it’s difficult to see the justification for any major roads, because there aren’t any gaps to fill. There’s a need to improve capacity, but it’s difficult to see where you can put a new route anywhere,” but such capacity issues remain important for the business community.
Ferguson argues that: “We’re a long way off having the ideal transport system for businesses operating in Scotland, but we are certainly moving in the right direction
We’re a long way off having the ideal transport system for businesses operating in Scotland, but we are certainly moving in the right direction 
.”
However, he says: “Internally, our two biggest cities are, up to a point, connected by a dual carriageway, that’s unacceptable in this day and age, and it’s something that’s historically been an issue and has continued to this day to be an issue. Also, if you look at businesses operating in the North of Scotland and the state of the A9, the new administration are taking a close look at this. In our manifesto before the 2007 election, we called for the A9 to be duelled between Perth and Pitlochry, with improved passing points thereafter.”
Ferguson says that a very pressing issue for the CBI is the “massive backlog in local road maintenance”.
“What we as an institution called for in our election manifesto was to compel local authorities to ring fence funding to try and deal with this issue. The reason we did that is whereas a lot of businesses are using the major trunk roads to go from place to place and transport their goods and services, a lot of local businesses are using local roads and the current state of the local road network in Scotland is a big state of concern to this group in particular.”
Elder says that there is a “significant difference between what is spent on maintenance and what is acknowledged to be required to be spent on maintenance.”
“As a professional body, we’re not taking a political stance on it. Our members are the experts, they’re the professional engineers working for all the various authorities and companies just looking at it and saying something really needs to be done. Anybody who drives around this country will know the roads are in a pretty poor state.
“Transport Scotland has responsibility for the trunk road network, and you can visibly see a change there. It can be very frustrating at times when you’re stuck in a motorway network when works are going on, however, it’s possible to see the effort being made there to bring the system up to scratch.
“The non-trunk roads, for which local authorities are responsible, are both town and city roads and those rural roads in their areas. There’s been deterioration in that particular network to the tune of £1.5bn backlog in maintenance. He also calls for ring-fenced funding, because “poorly maintained roads affect everybody”.
“If you take out city-centre roads and you take out the trunk roads and motorways, that leaves an awful lot of A-class roads that really are local lifelines in transport infrastructure, and also for public service vehicles. It’s something that’s not just a focus on the road network, it’s about opening up communication for all sorts of reasons.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said that the local government concordat with COSLA provides record levels of funding for the spending review period 2008-11. “On a local roads level, the historic agreement with COSLA will give local authorities more funding than ever before, and reduce ring fencing, giving councils more freedom to invest in local priorities. This gives local authorities an opportunity like never before to enhance the delivery of local services.”
Public transport also has an impact on business effectiveness, and Ferguson adds: “The Glasgow to Edinburgh rail route being electrified would have a real saving in journey times, once again, that’s something that historically, the people in Scotland have had to put up with.”
Elder outlines why such public transport links are important. “Eighty-five per cent of commuting traffic into Glasgow is by [public transport] road or rail, and by global standards, that is very high, Glasgow is in the world top ten for the number of people who come into the city by public transport or by mass transit.”
Dr John McCormick, chair of the Scottish Association for Public Transport, says that the association’s view is that public transport has been improving in recent years. “We are quite pleased with the fact the Scotrail travel has gone up by 50 per cent in the last ten years, and the quality of the trains is fairly good.
“The major bus operators are doing a good job, but there’s still an issue with the smaller operators and variable quality of fleets and variable reliability, and we think there’s quite a few miles to go in the bus industry. We would like to see more quality agreements set up between local authorities and bus operators to actually improve the reliability and address some of these problems.”
He says: “Until the Scottish Parliament was set up, there was virtually no money going into the rail network, in particular, and Stirling-Alloa and Larkhall re-openings were a long time coming, I think Stirling-Alloa has been talked about since the 1980s, and there was a period of ten years at Larkhall, between getting the planning permission and the building starting on it. We do think the rail industry has had a much better deal under devolution.”
Looking to the future of the nation’s transport system, he says: “It’s a real problem if oil prices go up and the transport system doesn’t change. More rail electrification and more electrically powered tram systems, these things will have to happen. Public transport is well placed to provide transport in these circumstances because of the ease with which it can use electrically-powered vehicles.”
What of the potential big beast in these discussions – high-speed rail?
“The reality is that we have to incrementally improve what we have, but unless and until we get more than one [main] line between Edinburgh and Glasgow, that means that passenger and freight traffic don’t have to share it, high-speed rail is not going to happen,” Elder says.
“In terms of a North-South link,” he adds, “in both Scotland and England, it would need more investment and these are decisions that are not necessarily in the Government’s hands because rail’s a separate entity, both in terms of Network Rail for the track and the companies that operate on it, you need to bring in the private-sector operators and the Government.” There are also environmental factors that would mean “there will be as many environmental objections to high-speed rail as there will be people in favour.”
However, Smyth says that, with regards to travel to London “to make the rail the dominant mode, it would have to be a wholesale step change, unless you made air travel that undesirable that you were effectively forced off through taxation or security measures or whatever else, but that could have adverse consequences for the Scottish economy.”
One thing for sure is that with so many competing priorities, both historical and emerging, Tavish Scott’s experience as Transport Minster will remain ever true: “You can never do enough quickly enough in transport. People would like new bypasses, new rail stops, new bus services, the lot. The difficult bit for any politician who is Minister for Transport is squaring what, at times, can be an impossible circle.”
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