The following was published as our “Viewpoint” in Local Transport Today on 15th April 2016. 

(Text as published available at topic 35 of the Transport-watch web site).

Professor James R Flynn, author of Are We Getting Smarter – Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century, shows that there has been an IQ gain of circa three points per decade for nearly 100 years, implying that we are all now raving geniuses compared with our ancestors. One reason for this astonishing trend is that habits of thought have changed. Previously they were rooted in the real, or concrete, world. Today people think in logical terms, at least for some of the time. To illustrate, Flynn cites a question and answer conversation with an isolated peasant people in the 1920s, whose economy depended on camels:

Q: There are no camels in Germany. Berlin is in Germany. So, how many camels are there in Berlin?
A: I do not know. I have never seen a German village. If Berlin is a large city there should be camels there.
Q: But what if there aren’t any in all of Germany?
A: If Berlin is a village there is probably no room for camels.

The naive conclusion may be that the peasants had an IQ of around 50. However, do we sophisticates fail to apply our intelligence when faced with data that contradicts our deeply-held prejudices?

Consider the emerging transport policy for the Northern Powerhouse. The region has great cities such as York, Leeds and Manchester, connected by two distinct and separate transport systems, rail and road. In an attempt to sabotage sentiment we will call these Mode-A (rail) and Mode-B (road).

Mode-A has highly engineered rights of way penetrating to the hearts of towns and cities. However, the track and vehicle costs are extraordinarily high compared with those for Mode B. Worse still, the vehicles are captive to the tracks. This system is revered because of the heroic engineering involved, the beauty of a pair of empty rail tracks curving away in the morning sun and because of the sentiment generated by a steam engine. However, Mode-A carries less than two percent of the region’s passenger-journeys, at vast cost to the benighted taxpayers despite astronomically expensive fares.

Mode-B, has a longer lineage, although only recently modernised to the extent of the asphalt and the motorised carriage. It costs the taxpayer seven times less per passenger-mile than does Mode-A, carries 98% of the region’s passenger-journeys and yields taxes far in excess of expenditure. Furthermore, Mode-B is so popular that demand frequently exceeds capacity, causing congestion, a matter that could be solved by pricing. Against this background, councillors, MPs and other doyens asked themselves and the populace which system should attract the most funding. Astonishingly, and despite the region being the birthplace of the logic-based industrial revolution, if not the age of reason, it was Mode-A that, to much applause, won the day. Here is a list of the aspirational schemes taken from a DfT news release (‘Revolutionary plans for northern transport set out’ 20 Mar 2015).

Major (Mode-A) options for new routes:
• Leeds to Newcastle: £8.5bn to £14.0bn
• Sheffield to Manchester: £12bn to £19bn
• Manchester to Leeds: £6.5bn to £10.0bn
• Liverpool to Manchester: £8.0bn to £13.0bn
• Leeds to Hull £5.5bn to £9bn

Mid-range total: £52.6bn. The reference also lists “Upgrades and cut-offs” (possibly substitutional to the above) with a mid-range price tag of £17.7bn.

These vast sums compare with a paltry £4.8bn for major schemes on the strategic routes associated with Mode-B for the six years to 2020/21.To appreciate the lunacy, note that, nationwide, the strategic element of the Mode-B network is two to three times as productive per lane-km as is Mode-A per track-km (Transport-Watch factsheet 1), and six to seven times as productive in terms of Government expenditure (see the spreadsheet associated with Transport-Watch topic 2).

Such things point to the lunatic. As an example of how warped some “thinking” is, we have the revered Stephen Joseph, of the railway lobby group, the Campaign for Better Transport (itself originally funded by the railway unions), who, in his letter of 21 January, attacks the case for a Trans-Pennine road tunnel on the basis that its (obvious) benefits are not proven. He apparently forgets that the Trans-Pennine railway carries less than one tenth of the passengers on the parallel M62. Presumably Joseph simply cannot imagine a world without railways any more than the peasants could imagine one without camels.

Likewise, in topics such as traffic management, speed cameras, electric cars, and the great dirty diesel scare (Transport-Watch topics 9, 12, 32 and 34). In all these areas logic has vanished in the face of prejudice and ignorance; similarly the scandal of HS2 (topic 15).

So, with a nod toward those peasants and their problem with the camels, we acknowledge that, for the time being, IQ has deserted transport policy. It’s not the steel tyres or the tracks that generate economic activity. Instead it’s the provision of moving floor space. Despite the prejudice, the express coach and lorry provide that at a fraction the cost of the train.

When sentiment, nostalgia and vested interest are rolled out, rational debate ends. Alternatively, do we conclude that we suffer from chronic intellectual corruption, evidenced by consultants and officials who are prepared to cynically accept the rewards of high office in return for the unpalatable task of tricking the Government on a mammoth scale? Perhaps it’s both.

As Alexander Pope wrote in the Dunciad, published 1742, ‘Dulness o’er all possess’d her ancient right, Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night.’