FORTH CROSSING BILL CALL FOR EVIDENCE RESPONSE FCB8 SCOTTISH ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT (SAPT)

Transcription

1 FORTH CROSSING BILL CALL FOR EVIDENCE RESPONSE FCB8 SCOTTISH ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT (SAPT) Assessment of Principles and Fit with Future Budgets Submission to Forth Crossing Bill and Finance Committees of Scottish Parliament by Tom Hart, Vice President, Scottish Association for Public Transport - March 2010 Tom Hart is a former lecturer in the Dept of Economic and Social History at Glasgow University with special interests in modern Scottish and British Economic History and in the role of transport in economies since 1870 He is also a Board Member of Transform Scotland, an appointed member of SPT and a member of the Scottish Government Advisory Committee on Transport and Tourism Statistics. He has published widely on transport, economic and environmental issues including:- Transport Options for a Sustainable Scotland (jointly edited with Nigel Doar, 1999) Transport Chapter in Energy and the Natural Heritage, SNH, 2008 The STPR, the Forth Crossing and Scottish Transport Finance (with John Howison, Project Director, Forth Crossing) in the March 2009 issue of the quarterly Scottish Transport Review 20 th century surface transport chapters in Transport and Communications (in Scotland), Scottish Life and Society series, edited by Kenneth Veitch, December 2009, John Donald/Birlinn Changing Trends in Passenger Movement : Scotland seminar presentation by Tom Hart to Scottish Transport Studies Group, Glasgow University, 20 January 2010 This statement complements the submission already made to the Transport Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee on the Public Transport Corridor proposals in the Forth Crossing Bill. This concluded that, on the evidence of reduced growth in passenger movement and the ability of the existing rail and road bridges to handle higher shares of passenger movement by public transport and in multi-occupant cars, the most cost-effective policy for the next decade would be to improve utilisation of the existing road and rail bridges both to cut levels of congestion and unreliability and to accelerate absolute cuts in carbon emissions and shifts to alternative energy sources. The rest of this submission deals with the overall principles of the Forth Crossing Bill and their fit with tightened budgets more highly geared towards delivery of prime economic, energy and climate change objectives for 2020 and beyond. Principles of Forth Crossing Bill The underlying principle behind the decision to introduce the Bill and have an additional crossing and approach road works open by 2016 is that this is an essential step to improve the overall performance of the Scottish economy and encourage 1

2 further development along the east coast corridor (as identified in the National Planning Framework) from Aberdeen to Edinburgh with extensions west to Glasgow and south to Newcastle. An extra bridge by 2016 is seen as vital to avoid unreliability, uncertainty and congestion relating to the present road bridge, though with the existing road bridge retained for public transport, pedestrians and cyclists. The additional bridge will involve significant carbon costs in construction (and further such costs in maintenance of the new and existing road bridges) and will also involve increased carbon emissions due to the 11% rise in car, lorry and van use expected by Transport Scotland as a result of shorter trip times. The Policy Memorandum (Paras 104/105) accepts that work on emissions is incomplete. In the longer term, improved fuel efficiency and the shift away from carbon-fuelled road transport are expected to bring absolute carbon cuts in line with the Scottish Government s climate change objectives. The Sustainable Appraisal and Carbon Management Report (Transport Scotland, 9 Dec., states (para 4.15) that the increased carbon emissions in the initial years of operation of the new crossing will require to be balanced by carbon cuts elsewhere if the overall carbon cuts sought by the Scottish Government by 2020 are to be delivered. The Policy Memorandum (Paras. 153/156) states that the base Benefit to Cost ratio (compared to continued general purpose use of the existing road bridge) would be low at 1.34 but then argues that taking account of other gains in transport efficiency and Wider Economic Benefits- e.g of agglomeration, better access to markets, competition - the benefit to cost ratio rises to 2.03, still low compared to other schemes. In relation to Opportunity Costs, the Policy Memorandum (Paras. 143/146) states that the Bridge Project will inevitably hit other Scottish capital projects given a total Scottish Capital Budget expected to fall to 2.6bn a year (or less). This can be eased if borrowing is permitted or other ways found to gain extra EU or Treasury funding but the Memorandum goes on to say that there are no present prospects of such funding. It reports the Treasury as in broad agreement with the principle of an additional crossing but with funding being a matter for the Scottish Government. Defects of Economic and Carbon Assessments SAPT considers that the above assessments have very serious defects which, in total, warrant a decision not to endorse the principles of the Bill. Four substantial defects of which the last in respect of opportunity costs is seen as the most serious are drawn to the attention of both the Bill and Finance Committees. 1) An additional bridge by 2016 is vital for the Scottish economy and especially for the east coast. There is no evidence in support of this statement and considerable contrary evidence, including:- traffic levels of motorway and A roads in Scotland (see APPENDIX) are already almost stable whereas growth in rail and bus use continues an expected 50% rise in the real price of oil to $150 a barrel by, or before, 2016 despite a highly suspect Transport Scotland forecast of 44% growth in road vehicular traffic across the Forth between 2005 and 2017, Transport Scotland s forecast of further growth to 2027 falls to 6% (Engineering, Traffic and Economic Assessment 4 Dec., 2009 Para 5.9.3) 2

3 the February 2010 Report by Denvil Coombe, commissioned by DfT, on the Appraisal of Multi-modal Modelling has been very critical of defects in models leading to over-estimation of road traffic growth, under-estimation of public transport growth and inadequate treatment of impacts on carbon reduction targets and of pricing changes and demand management on congestion the vast majority of freight movement to and from the north, and into and out of Scotland, will continue to be on the road and rail corridors south to the Eurocentral distribution zone and to England and English ports via Carlisle (including the A66 link from Penrith to the east coast) and to the ports at Grangemouth and Rosyth (listed for growth in the National Planning Framework) with priority management measures to encourage shifts to public transport and car-sharing and to encourage HGVs to use other routes, the present Forth Road Bridge can have reduced traffic levels and improved reliability at peak periods for around 20% of the capital cost of an additional crossing plus a retained, but lightly used, existing bridge the Forth Crossing proposals have no bearing on the recent decision by Diageo to relocate 400 jobs to Fife (see also opportunity costs at (4) nor on job prospects for Tayside and points north 2) Carbon Costs The present Forth Crossing proposals fail to recognise that better management of the existing Forth road and rail crossings can yield earlier and larger carbon savings, unlike the increases arising from the current proposals. Assessments must give a higher weighting to this advantage, including reduced road vehicle volumes in West Edinburgh, West Lothian and South Fife assisted by shifts to public transport and car-sharing and also offering further carbon savings from reduced congestion. 3) Benefit to Cost Ratios Present ratios are heavily influenced by:- a failure to measure the benefits of an additional managed crossing from a base including better management and utilisation of the existing road and rail crossings and diversionary routes e.g a more direct and free-flow road from Halbeath to Kincardine; fast passenger ferries a high weighting for monetised gains from absolute time-saving compared to a low weighting for carbon savings and for shifts from car use to public transport. Benefits from increased working and residence in the areas north and south of Queensferry (including working from home) need to be assessed as well as gains from agglomeration and longer-distance commuting. There should be evaluation of these factors as key elements in Committee scrutiny of Forth Crossing principles. It is likely that intelligent management of the existing road and rail crossings will give an improved benefit to cost ratio, aided by the substantial savings in capital and carbon costs, less congestion and minimal adverse impacts. Though an extra crossing would have require less maintenance than the present road bridge, the plan to have both bridges remain will raise total maintenance costs. While the new bridge would avoid some delays due to wind conditions, shielding around the existing bridge towers could cut delays and the rail bridge is largely unaffected by wind. 3

4 If cable renewal is essential in the next six years, adverse impacts would be higher due to some periods of lane closure but the total adverse impact would be small relative to capital savings. Impacts can be mitigated by acceleration of the rail and bus improvements and car- sharing which, in any case, require action in the coming six years. If the HGV load on the present bridge is eased, cable renewal could be deferred ten years and potentially, for several decades. 4) Opportunity Cost The most serious defect in the Bridge Crossing Policy Memorandum is the inadequate treatment of opportunity costs. Early action on an additional bridge can only be justified if, in relation to policy aims, such action gives better outcomes for employment and the economy than alternative public spending options. The key aims of the Scottish Government in the present decade are to promote sustainable growth and cyclical revival though faster action on measures to promote energy efficiency and conservation and shifts to non-fossil fuels (plus carbon capture and storage) which also offer significant employment opportunities. Priority action must focus on budget restructure and regulatory/fiscal efforts to increase necessary investment and employment. This embraces measures giving quick wins for carbon cuts, reduced congestion and accelerated traffic management, modal shift and electrification in the transport sector. It is significant that both the Auditor-General for Scotland and the Council of Economic Advisers have expressed reservations about the fit with overall economic and policy strategy of the Forth Crossing proposals as presently financed. On the available evidence, an extra Forth Crossing needing a further 2bn of spending by 2016 within reduced overall funding comes nowhere near meeting key criteria. Priority for this project will lead to steeper cuts in projects and programmes better aligned to economic, energy and climate change objectives plus added benefits for jobs and social priorities. In February 2009, John Swinney as Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, indicated that the Forth Crossing would absorb between 330m and 465m in each year to 2016 from a falling total of capital funding. Under the Public Spending Review after the General Election, the overall annual capital budget of the Scottish Government could fall as low as 2bn per year (exclusive of gains from new sources of income and/or cuts in revenue spend). This indicates the scale of the opportunity costs involved and requires explicit assessment in relation to the principles of the Bill and optimum strategies for public finance to Conclusions and Recommendations The economic and carbon assessments in the Policy Memorandum and related Transport Scotland website information are fundamentally flawed. They fail to establish the case for an additional Forth Crossing as the largest single project in Scotland in a period of tighter limits on public spending and increasing pressure for cuts in carbon emissions and faster progress on employment-boosting energy efficiency and shifts to alternative fuel s, public transport and car-sharing. The principle of an additional Forth Crossing by 2016 should be rejected in favour of specific measures to ensure carbon cuts and better use of the existing rail and road bridges. Observation of the results of such measures by 2017 should be used to re-examine longer-term plans for the Forth Crossing, including options for borrowing and reforms in fares and road pricing policies. SAPT accepts that, at some future date, it may be 4

5 possible to establish a sound case for an additional crossing possibly to the immediate west of an expanding port at Rosyth but no such case has been established in the evidence on the current Bill. 2 March

6 APPENDIX Road and Car Traffic Statistics (million vehicle Kms) Rail Comparisons Scottish M way & A Roads All traffic 28,209 28,055 28,898 28,986 28,810 Cars 22,308 22,060 22,610 22,392 22,221 STS No 28 p 124 M90 at Kelty (average daily flows for all traffic thousand vehicles) 29,565 30,703 26,511 30,787 STS No 28 p 130 Transport Scotland data on actual and expected road vehicle crossings on Queensferry Road Bridges in 2005 and 2017 (thousand vehicles per day) (no extra bridge) (on new bridge) (on present bridge) 66 no data SAPT Vehicle estimates Total passengers (see SAPT evidence to Transport Committee) (including by rail and ferry) Rail Passenger kms in Scotland outwith SPT area (millions) , % STS No p 152 Total pass kms in Scotland continued upwards from 2,224m in to 2,601m in i.e. +18% with rate of growth being higher in the east of Scotland STS No 28 p 158 Examples of yearly passenger usage of Forth area rail stations (thousands) Dundee 1,438 1,515 1,490 1,600 Kirkcaldy ,072 1,126 1,152 Inverkeithing ,032 Dunfermline Town South Gyle Leuchars Dalmeny Dunfermline Queen Margaret Dalgety Bay Annual data in STS on 100 top stations and usage of new stations more detail available from ORR Estimated usage of Gogar Rail/Tram/Bus Interchange in first full year is 750 thousand Peak Daily Rail Passenger Volumes south of Inverkeithing (7 to 9 am working days) March 2006 April 2009 March ,247 3,592 forecast requested but not yet available Peak Daily Bus Passenger Volumes south of Ferrytoll Park and Ride ( am working days) April 2006 April 2009 April ,285 Data and forecasts requested but not yet available Source: Fife Council Local Plan p plus updated rail data for