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PAUL WILENIUS: Travelling around Britain
in Victorian times may have seemed slow. But now 100 years after Queen
Victoria's death, too often it seems little faster. Instead of having
a modern transport system fit for the twenty-first century, it appears
to be caught in a bygone era.
Four years ago Labour promised to drag transport out of the dark ages.
There was a grand vision to persuade motorists out of their cars and back
on to buses and trains. But now transport experts and Labour MPs fear
that great dream has been blown off course.
The seaside town of Hastings was once teeming with Victorian holidaymakers.
Now it has to put up with hordes of less welcome visitors, traffic. When
he came to power John Prescott pledged to tackle the jams, with congestion
charging, and work place parking taxes, while Gordon Brown increased fuel
prices and stopped spending on new road schemes. It seemed bad news for
drivers.
EDMUND KING: When they first came to power
there were some simplistic assumptions that all you need to do is improve
public transport and then the roads will get clearer, there'll be less
congestion. I think they've realised that that's really not the case;
that some ninety-four per cent of passenger journeys are dependent on the
car.
WILENIUS: The big problem for the
government is that in many areas, like here on the South Coast, the rail
system appears rundown. This small station in Hastings looks shabby and
dirty. But Labour urgently needs to make the rail system more attractive
to motorists, with private sector investment in new trains and stations.
Even before the Hatfield crash when passenger numbers were up, many local
people were staying away from the aging trains.
MICHAEL FOSTER MP: Well we're a historic town,
and indeed certainly our trains are. And we've got rolling stock that's
forty years old. I mean in fact people going on the trains are younger
than, than the rolling stock.
WILENIUS: John Prescott had hoped
that a Transport Bill would be rushed through early in the Parliament,
to excite passengers with his grand vision of a rail renaissance. But
like these trains in East Sussex, it was beset with delays.
Transport was not seen as a top priority, and combined with a cap on spending
for two years this starved Prescott of cash and legislation. This means
the new Strategic Rail Authority, which has the job of reviving the ailing
network, will only get under way with its full powers this week.
RICHARD BRANSON: Ninety per cent of all delays
are down to the track, the track has not been renewed, most of it for twenty-five,
thirty years, and it is, you know, largely worn out. Railtrack have got
this enormous programme of trying to fix the track.
SIR ALASTAIR MORTON: We have a Railtrack that has
been found to be less than fully fit for purpose, we have a delivery industry
the transport operators that carry the passengers and the freight, that
have been found to be hard pressed between the lack of capacity and performance
in the network and the demands of a growing market. We have a need for
funding that the sources of which in the future are not yet fully clarified.
So we've been given some rather hard lessons - we're like a puppy having
our nose rubbed in something.
WILENIUS: Question marks were raised
about Railtrack's performance by rail crashes at Southall and Ladbroke
Grove. But the chaos that followed the Hatfield crash has shaken passenger
confidence. Now On The Record has found out that the Health and Safety
Executive is investigating the use by Railtrack at Hatfield of specially
hardened track. Ministers confirmed that Railtrack has stopped fitting
this type of track while the inquiry goes on.
DALE CAMPBELL-SAVOURS: Rail Track purchased this hardened,
heat-treated rail, simply because they were going to save money in the
long term. They believed it would last longer, but of course it required
a higher element of maintenance, and it's there where they made the cuts,
and that's why of course we've had this problem at Hatfield.
From what I'm told from people in the industry, Rail Track have clearly
fitted the wrong kind of track. What they should have fitted was bog standard
rail which we produce in Workington, instead of this hardened heat-treated
rail.
WILENIUS: The lack of confidence
in the rail system is making it even less likely that drivers like Chris
Lee will get out of her car. And the government now seems to agree with
her, and is heeding the motorists' cry.
CHRIS LEE: You have to live with
a car because the buses, the trains are, well the trains are pretty awful
everywhere admittedly, but down here on the Hastings route they're particularly
bad.
WILENIUS: Before the election expected
in May, Ministers are backing down to the motorists and truckers. There
will further cuts in fuel duties and taxes on small cars, and congestion
charges and car parking taxes will be slow in coming into force.
KING: What's changed is
that the emphasis, the realism, has actually changed with Lord MacDonald,
and he said yes, we've got to improve public transport, but at the same
time we can't ignore the road system - most of our trucks go on the road
system; a majority of traffic, no matter what you do to the railways, will
still be on the road system.
WILENIUS: The train journey from
Hastings to London is no faster than it was in the age of steam. Now environmentalists
and senior Labour figures want Tony Blair to get his transport policy back
on track. The rail crisis could even affect the party in some marginal
seats, but above all they feel that radical action is vital to save his
fading transport dream.
The government is promising to pour lots more money into the transport
problem. One-hundred-and-eighty billion pounds is pledged for the ten-year
transport plan, with twenty-nine billion pounds of taxpayers money for
rail. But some experts say they won't get value for money unless the Strategic
Rail Authority stands up strongly for passengers.
STEPHEN JOSEPH: The Strategic Rail Authority
isn't being tough enough in terms of the standards it's actually demanding
from the train operators themselves. We've been arguing that there should
be firm minimum standards for running train services in this country, that
standards in relation to information, to security at stations, to accessibility,
to fares and ticketing structures to try and simplify those.
SIR ALASTAIR MORTON: I very much think that the
SRA is part of the industry. We're on the public sector side of the fence
but this is an industry that will go forward as a public/private partnership
within the industry. So the SRA should be seen as part of the industry,
not as a sub-department of the government machine or in any sense political.
WILENIUS: Getting worried passengers
back into deserted carriages is the immediate problem. But in the longer
term, Railtrack is still Labour's biggest headache. There's growing pressure
from Labour MPs for the government to consider taking more control, or
removing it from private ownership altogether.
GWYNETH DUNWOODY MP: Railtrack must know it's on a probationary
period, and how it performs in the next year or so will determine its future.
But it may be that in the future the electorate will say we would like
a non-profit making trust because we'd like to make sure that all the money
goes into the system.
WILENIUS: Yet this would be fiercely
opposed by private business and the rail authorities.
BRANSON: I think you know what
the rail industry needs now is actually a period of stability, it needs
a chance for us to get on and you know get our new trains in, to motivate
our staff, it needs Railtrack to get on and get that track sorted out.
MORTON: The idea of the government
stake -well I in my time, because I've been round a while, I've been on
the boards of nationalised industries, British Steel at one time for example,
and I haven't noticed that the government stake served any useful purpose
other than allowing the government to be blamed for absolutely everything.
MICHAEL FOSTER: If the government are prepared
to put in the money, which they are, then I think that may be that we need
a seat at the table as well, perhaps by shareholding, perhaps by government
directors, but certainly we need to have the public interest involved in
Railtrack decisions.
WILENIUS: There's anger over the
government's new car friendly policies. And protesters against the Northern
bypass around Hastings have the Deputy Prime Minister in their sights.
They're upset most of the eleven miles of the new road would ruin this
beautiful area. John Prescott has promised not build his way out of congestion,
but now Labour plans to spend fifty-four billion pounds on road building
in the next decade. So, can you tell me, what, what is this, what is this?
UNNAMED WOMAN: This is part of the High Weald,
which is an area of outstanding natural beauty, which is a national designation
to show the value of the landscape here and it's going to be completely
devastated by the new bypasses if they're built
WILENIUS: Ministers may give the
go ahead for one-hundred new road projects over the next ten years, provoking
fierce argument.
FOSTER: Both the by-pass, and indeed
the A21 improvements are key to the town's future. I mean it's said that
William only won the Battle of Hastings because Harold couldn't get down
the A21 in time. But, so the roads are just awful, as indeed is the rail
system. But that by-pass is key to our, our success.
DUNWOODY: Roads aren't the answer. Roads
never have been the answer. They are one part of a complicated system.
Anybody who suggests that somehow or other by just letting everybody rely
all the time on the combustion engine is producing a recipe for total chaos
in the final analysis.
WILENIUS: The anti-road protesters
gather support in the town centre for a petition to stop the by-pass around
Hastings. They want to force John Prescott to return to his grand vision,
reducing congestion by cutting traffic levels rather than building new
roads. But even as they deliver a symbolic piece of the threatened fields
to the local museum, it's clear his ten-year transport plan will do the
opposite.
ACTUALITY.
JOSEPH: I think a lot of people
would say we don't want seventeen per cent more traffic on the roads, we
want to be able to go outside our door without feeling we are about to
be run down. And particularly we don't want our kids to be out there with
so much extra traffic, but the government's decided that congestion is
the key problem, traffic isn't an issue and I think that's the real retreat
that we've seen.
WILENIUS: Labour promised a new
direction for transport. But in reality very little has changed. Traffic
levels are rising and rail still seems to be stuck in the past. And there
are fears money alone will not deliver improvements, either big enough
or fast enough, to tempt people back on to the trains and out of their
cars.
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