Why Transport Infrastructure Matters More Than Ever in Today's World
6th March 2025
Amid all the political turmoil across the world right now, development of transport infrastructure can seem like an unwelcome distraction. Even an irrelevance that has been overtaken by events. Inevitably, our need for security comes first. But what we all know is that, no matter what, the world keeps on turning. Everyday life goes on.
Maybe that’s why we sometimes don’t see what is important. We fail to appreciate or see the value of something when it feels familiar or routine. It’s precisely this relevance to everyday life that makes solving our transport problems so integral to tackling the domestic challenges we face as a country.
The Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review is due in late spring. It’s a time when the Treasury and the Department for Transport have to determine what to spend, and on what, over the coming years. It matters.
We desperately need to grow our economy. We need to raise living standards and close the growing social divide between the haves and have-nots. If we don’t, we can expect to see yet more polarisation. But we can’t meet these challenges unless we can give Britain a transport infrastructure that genuinely works for people. It’s a crucial cog in the solution wheel. This may sound far-fetched but I believe it to be true.
This is a self-proclaimed mission-led government. Of the five aims they have identified, two are directly relevant to transport:
1. Kickstart Economic Growth - to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7, with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.
4. Break Down Barriers to Opportunity - by reforming our childcare and education systems, to make sure there is no class ceiling on the ambitions of young people in Britain.
You can’t hold down a job, or get one in the first place, if you don’t have a car and your only option is one bus every hour that stops running too early or too late for you to get to work. Likewise, for getting to school, college or university. Or for picking children up from school or nursery.
Employers can’t access reliable staff resources if people can’t get to work on time. We can’t tackle our productivity problem, open up opportunity and get those not in the workforce back into work if we don’t address the transport barriers that too many people face, particularly outside London and the Southeast.
We’ll never tackle climate change either if more people don’t choose to travel by public transport or active travel. To encourage people to make that choice means reducing traffic congestion to improve the reliability of bus services, developing new tram and rail infrastructure to increase the frequency, quality and reliability of services and building comprehensive cycle routes, ideally segregated from general road traffic.
In some instances, to achieve this will still require investment in roads, which are important for the movement of goods and services, and bus services.
If we can’t improve transport, including active travel options, air pollution will remain a problem and we’ll be a less healthy population, maintaining pressure on our already stretched NHS.
And then there’s our ageing population. Loneliness has been found to have very real health implications. Many older people are dependent on public transport to get anywhere. An older population isolated and alone in their homes, due to poor access to a bus service, isn’t what we want for anyone, while a less healthy older population adds further pressure to beleaguered social care services.
So, transport definitely matters to us all. The Chancellor has hugely difficult decisions to make. But whatever trade offs have to be taken, let’s hope that they are made with a full appreciation of the role transport investment can make to providing the long-term growth and stability that we all want to see.
