One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

The South Wales newspapers have run three stories about public transport in as many days. I thought I'd summarise them here.

On June 28, Rhodri Clark reported that bus use in Wales has fallen to its lowest since records began in 1982. (The witty headline to the piece alludes to the fact that everyone in Wales – except me, because I know half the drivers by name anyway – will call the man behind the wheel 'Drive' when they get on or off the bus.) In 2013-14, 107 million passenger journeys were made on Welsh buses. This nadir coincided with the Welsh Government's decision to cut subsidies by 25%. Further reductions in services are planned as cash-strapped local authorities struggle to balance the books. I know correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation, but it's difficult not to draw your own conclusions, isn't it?

According to the industry body CPT Cymru, some 800 services have been axed across the country. Passenger numbers fell by a further 3.3% in 2014-15, compared with just 0.2% across the UK as a whole. Bus fares also went up by an average of 4.4%, well over three times the rate of inflation.

As you'll already know if you read this blog regularly, my local area – the Cynon Valley – has been especially hard hit by the cuts in bus services. Aberdare is a large town at the centre of a widespread cluster of smaller settlements. Even so, after six o'clock at night and on Sundays you'll be lucky to see a bus at all. There's only one arterial route, connecting Hirwaun to Glynhafod, which continues to run outside normal commuting times.

Everywhere else is completely cut off from the town centre. People living in Penderyn, Rhigos, Cwmdare or Llwydcoed, and working anywhere on the axis from Aberdare to Cardiff, really have no viable alternative but to drive to work. (If you live in Cwmbach, you've at least got a train service – which stops at the far end of the village, and it's a very long walk from there to the top.) The same is true of Abercwmboi, Cefnpennar, Perthcelyn, and the districts lying away from the main axis further south.

There's little point in being able to catch a bus into Aberdare from the outlying areas first thing in the morning, when there's no return service at the other end of the day. Spending upwards of ten quid a day on a taxi is out of the question, too. There's quite simply no way of getting to and from anywhere, apart from running your own car.

This flies in the face of everything that politicians and scientists have told us for (at least) the last twenty years. Their message is always: leave your car at home; use public transport; go green. Maybe they should try it for themselves.

Tim Peppin is the environment director of the Welsh Local Government Association. Mr Clarke's article quotes him as saying, 'The bus provides an awful lot of transport for people to get to work. If people can't get to work any more, that adds to the problems of dealing with poverty and unemployment.' In a area which has been struggling with poverty and unemployment for four decades, the last thing we need is anything else to add to the mix.

With that in mind, I hereby invite any Westminster politician, any London-based BBC correspondent, or any Westminster Bubble broadsheet journalist, to come down to Wales and join me for a day, exploring the public transport network in and around Aberdare. You'd have to leave your own vehicle at home, throw yourself on the mercy of Stagecoach in South Wales and Arriva Trains Wales for the whole day – and get back to London after 9pm. You can contact me on vanishingvalleys@gmail.com, and I'd love to hear from you if you'd care to take up the challenge.

The second article appeared on June 29, written by local lad Sam Tegeltija. Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC will be given a grant to fund a feasibility study into extending the proposed South Wales Metro (see entries passim) into the Llantrisant area.

[caption id="attachment_12299" align="aligncenter" width="615"] The South Wales Metro (not yet available to passengers)[/caption]

Take a closer look at the map. With the exception of a new route between Hirwaun and Treherbert, a link between Pontypool and Abercynon (which I've been advocating in this blog for about two years already), the extension of the Ebbw Vale line to Abergavenny via Newport, and the new (yellow) connections around Llantrisant, everything is focused on getting to Cardiff. As usual.

At the Plaid Cymru hustings in Treforest on Thursday (see More Questions and Answers in my other blog), the Local Development Plan for Cardiff came in for a lot of criticism from candidates and members alike. The reason is obvious. We can't afford to let Cardiff suck everything in towards its economic hub.

Here in the Valleys, our town centres are in steady decline as businesses go 'out of town' or close entirely. Businesses are struggling with high rents and extortionate rates, at the same as our major towns haemorrhage customers to places like the Cyfarthfa Retail Park outside Merthyr. When it's cheaper to park the car at Aberdare Station and get the train to Cardiff than it is to park in Aberdare itself, there's only one direction people are going to head.

Just last week, my friend Cllr Mike Powell (the only Lib Dem in the village) posted an online petition against Marks and Spencer's plans to close their Pontypridd shop. This would put some forty jobs at risk and leave a huge hole in the shopping centre. At this rate it won't be long before our town centres will consist of little but charity shops, pawnbrokers, tanning salons, hairdressers and travel agencies.

This is why I've been arguing from the outset that work on the Metro system needs to start in the Valleys, and mesh into the existing rail network as it develops. A light rail link between the Taff and Rhymney Valleys, via Abercynon and Nelson, would enable people to commute from east to west far more easily than at present. The road is already in place. The LRT route could be built beside it, or along it, or even on an elevated structure parallel to it. (I'm not a civil engineer, so I don't know how these things work. I'm just basing my vision on the tram system I saw in Manchester a couple of years ago.)

Here's another example: there's a disused rail tunnel under the mountain between Merthyr Tydfil and Abernant. Abernant isn't the most convenient place to get to, but it's nearer Aberdare than anywhere else. A tram line through the tunnel would reduce the journey time from Merthyr to Aberdare by fifty per cent at least. It could also run into the evenings and at weekends, unlike the buses. Just think of the potential for jobs and investment in an area with a reliable and (fairly) weatherproof transport infrastructure at its core.

Other east-west connections would open up the valleys north of Bridgend and Newport. It would be possible to reach the main rail lines without having to go via Cardiff. Such a scheme would eventually lead to a comprehensive network of lines criss-crossing the whole of South Wales, from Swansea to Abergavenny and everywhere in between. Bridgend, Llantrisant, Pontypridd, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly and Blackwood would be ideal hubs for a system like that, with branches heading out in all directions. The economic and environmental benefits would be obvious, as people would be able to travel affordably and quickly, without pouring hundreds of thousands of cars onto the narrow valleys roads every day.

I think my suggestion would create well-paid skilled engineering jobs in an area of desperately high unemployment from the outset. On completion, the new lines would immediately benefit people who can no longer rely on buses to get them to and from work. I know no end of people who have to skip over jobs for which they're ideally suited, simply because they have no chance of getting to the workplace. In the 21st Century, that's simply unacceptable.

With this in mind, there are already plenty of buses and trains funnelling north-south into Cardiff. We need to look at getting from east to west as well – because the buses don't come up to snuff any more.

The third article appeared today. Siôn Barry reported that the Welsh Government have earmarked £400 million for the Metro scheme – but haven't yet decided whether to back heavy rail or trams.

I think you can probably tell which side I'm on. To talk of electrifying the Valley Lines is all very well, but as electrification of the Great Western network still hasn't come anywhere near Wales, I wouldn't hold your breath for electric trains. A friend of mine, a few years younger than me, once told me that his life's ambition is to catch an electric train on the Valley Lines. I think he was only half-joking. (Mind you, some scientists say that everyone in the UK who's aged forty now should be able to look forward to receiving a telegram from the monarch. He might be in with a shout after all.)

Trams aren't the only option, though. A proper light rail transit system would be faster, cleaner, more efficient, and much cheaper to build. Where it isn't possible to connect isolated communities to the network, there has to be alternative transport provision. So we're back to the bus again. Services need to be protected, so that everyone gets the benefit from the proposed Metro, not just those of us who live on the main arterial routes in decent-sized towns.

Let's hope that any feasibility study into modernising the public transport system in South Wales looks seriously at all the available alternatives before committing us, the travelling public, to years of infrastructure upheaval.

It's only by opening the whole process out to consultation, and asking the people who really matter what they want from the Metro, that we'll get a system worthy of the 21st Century. After all, when was the last time you saw a politician using public transport?

Barry, S. (2015) 'Up to £600m confirmed for the next phase of the Metro transport network for South Wales', Wales Online, 30 June 2015.

Clarke, R. (2015) 'Sorry, Drive! Bus use reaches all-time low in Wales, new figures reveal', Wales Online, 28 June 2015.

Tegeltija, S. (2015) 'Feasibility study authorised for plans to add Beddau, Llantrisant and Talbot Green to South Wales Metro project', Wales Online, 29 June 2015.