A PAEAN TO INTEGRATED TRANSPORT

I got the train to work today. I went out of my house in a medium-sized Cotswold village, walked 200 yards and got on a bus to the station. At the station I bought a coffee from the politest man I have met all year – essentially Jean-Luc Picard without the underlying grumpiness – then two minutes later the train arrived. I got a seat and spent ten minutes sitting next to a pleasant man from Wales (one of those exquisite accents which sounds like waves crashing on the shore) while we both read our respective newsprint. I got off at Oxford and crossed the road to my office. In this I accept I am lucky, although the downside is that I open my window at my peril since every bus in Oxford seems to pass underneath. I am unhurried, not at all stressed and generally happy with the world.

Now there are many aspects of this journey to ‘unpack’, to paraphrase a previous colleague of mine. Firstly, I accept that this journey is not the norm for commuters. I am bl**dy lucky to have such connections available. Second I also accept that having the bus in my village is a positive boon and all thanks to the Council Tax payers of Oxfordshire who are annually asked to subsidise a series of buses to link up rural communities. Without these buses many villages would wither, although it must be said that the service is not brilliantly used. Thirdly, it is an expensive option. Putting aside the usual wear and tear argument for my car, it costs me around £4 to drive to Oxford, park and cycle. The journey today – excluding coffee – cost me £9, although it would be reduced if I was a regular commuter.

So there are serious limitations with the whole ‘public transport good-private cars bad’ argument. However, what my experience demonstrates to me is the principle that a well-managed (!) public transport system could do a huge amount to reduce traffic, reduce pollution, cut stress and generally improve our social and climatic environment.

Those who argue for cars over everything else have a point. Cars are brilliant, liberating and an unequivocal boon for the economy and social mobility, allowing people to live in decent housing and still work long distances away. The green movement must address this fundamental freedom to ‘move’ in its prescriptions for our future [Green Party policy on this used to be hilarious, effectively introducing Soviet-style internal passports]. Do we have a class of people who can afford to pay increased taxes and costs for motor vehicles, leaving everyone else to rediscover the joys of shovelling horseshit? The current impetus to develop greener cars and cars which use different fuels is very welcome and demonstrates to me that the whole environmental thing doesn’t have to be about sackcloth and ashes but innovation, new industries and economic development, which is where our future King got it so utterly wrong yesterday. Development is not bad: it has freed billions from poverty and given people unimaginable opportunities.

Whatever the future holds, there must be investment in a better transport system, which is seen not as the enemy of cars or their successors but as a complement to them. My journey today may not have been typical of that endured by many commuters but it does not always have to be that way.

I shall stop now as I might burst into inspirational, sub-Gospel song about the benefits of public transport…but the final thought must be for the man who sold me the coffee at Charlbury Station, who is a credit to his trade and puts every wannabe actor working in Starbucks to shame for his service, pleasant demeanour and – crucially – for the fact that his coffee actually tasted nice.