phil_20686, on 2011-August-17, 10:25, said:
COngestion is not necessarily a problem of infrastructure. The railways are terrible, but the roads are in a much better state than a decade ago prior to labour going on a drive about road maintenence. Particularly in Scotland. Even the railways are in a better state than they were at the end of British Rail. Even though their privatisation was an abject fail.
Good to hear the roads have improved in Scotland. I'm not sure this is a universal experience across the country, though - all over the country councils are worrying about increasing backlogs of repairs.
I would also argue that while congestion may not in itself be a problem of infrastructure, it does highlight that there may be benefits in increasing the capacity of that infrastructure.
phil_20686, on 2011-August-17, 10:25, said:
Incidentally, I think that the number one indicator of a poor transport infrastructure is inequality of house prices. The better the transport infrastructure, the easier it is to live "close" to your work, and the smaller the premium on living close to the city centers. A thought experiment involving a star trek type transporter should convince you that transport is the prime driver of the location bonus. Thus, IMO, good government policy would be to build the first high speed rail link from london to, say, Newcastle, with the aim of trying to bring poorer/cheaper areas into the london orbit, and hence persuading industry and people to move to the north.
Interesting idea, and I agree that the transport infrastructure will affect house price inequality. But there are lots of other reasons for preferring to live in one place than another besides relative costs of housing and ease of commuting. And of course even if a star trek transporter enabled me to live wherever I wanted to and still get to work in virtually no time, it still wouldn't necessarily allow me to do so at no cost - indeed, I can imagine the owner of the facility charging quite a lot for the transport service he was offering! It will be interesting to see whether house price differentials increase as a result of on-going hikes in rail fares in the UK.