I was a touch critical, possibly unfairly, of newly-appointed Buses Minister Nusrat Ghani for not attending the annual dinner of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, although she did attend David Begg’s Bus Summit, and gave a perfectly respectable speech.
More importantly – much more importantly – I’m hearing from everybody who has had dealings with her since she became a transport minister that she is actually really rather impressive.
I said last week that if Nusrat Ghani wants to make a difference, as all ministers do, she needs to tackle the age-old problem of congestion. So I was really pleased to see from her speech to the Bus Summit a recognition that congestion is one of the biggest obstacles to growth for the bus industry.
Actually, it’s not the biggest obstacle to growth, it’s also an obstacle to just maintaining current ridership. And I’m hearing that Nusrat Ghani really wants to crack this problem, and wants to develop a plan to do so.
What’s good about Nusrat Ghani, I’m sensing, is that she doesn’t do platitudes.
She’s not going to tell the bus operators, for example, how important the bus is and how working in partnership with local authorities is the right way forward (true as those two points are), and then feel she’s done her job.
I can think of one or two of her predecessors who would have felt like that.
No, it seems that Nusrat Ghani really does want to roll her sleeves up and get something done.
I’m quietly impressed. Mind you, how successful she will be in cracking the congestion problem, I’m not so sure. It’s hardly a new phenomenon, and I’ve not yet come across a minister or council leader who has yet found the magic answer.
There is an answer, of course, or at least a partial one. But no minister or council leader dare speak its name. It’s the elephant in the room: Road pricing. The local electorates of Edinburgh and Manchester have been asked in referenda if they would be happy to have road pricing – and both firmly rejected it. So politicians run a mile at the very mention of the idea.
The technology exists. We can be charged variable rates to reflect the time of day we use the roads and the level of congestion the road experiences. We can be charged top dollar for using the M25 at peak times, but next to nothing for using a local road in Cornwall at ten o’clock at night. Not that Cornwall needs road pricing I suspect, but you get my point.
The technology exists, but the political will is sadly lacking.
I wish Nusrat Ghani well on her mission to crack the congestion problem. She is a politician to watch, it seems. So I just hope she stays at the Department of Transport long enough to have an impact.
