I'm not sure how I feel about this article. I agree overall that UK public transport is generally pretty bad - it gets even worse when you're travelling inter-city and it's poor value for money. But I feel a little bit like this is nicely presented data and a compelling narrative being used to come to a pre-determined conclusion.
When the case for Transport=>Productivity is introduced they talk about the GDP vs Population graph in France and indeed start presenting a neat little example that tells the story they want:
> For example, Lyon, the second largest city in France, is more productive than Marseille, the third largest city, which is in turn more productive than Lille.
Nice and easy, right? However that was a very interesting choice of city to stop at, because the next largest city - Toulouse - has a higher per-capita GDP than both Marseille and Lille. Then the fifth largest - Bordeaux - is higher than Lille and is mere a whisker shy of Marseille. Only after we skip over a number of tightly bunched cities do we see a bit of a cliff where St Etienne, Toulon and Montpellier are smaller and also relatively poorer. You can definitely see something if you squint your eyes and look at the graph, but to me it just looks like the French cities are more equal overall than the British ones. But we know that already if we compare GINI coefficients of the countries as a whole (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...).
Most interesting is the massive outlier in the main graph - Edinburgh. It has no metro system to speak of (save for a single expensive and much maligned tram line) and an OK-but-nothing-special bus network. It's certainly not a sprawling city, but it's not compact either.
The poorer British cities definitely need some love and investment, and improved public transport will undoubtedly be needed. But this article presents an oversimplification that makes me a little uneasy about accepting any of their conclusions.
I too suspect a pre-determined conclusion. That said:
Edinburgh, like London, has a single integrated transport authority (Transport for Edinburgh) albeit legally it's much less powerful than London's. I suspect that might be relevant.
As a tourist (I've never lived there, only visited) Edinburgh certainly _felt_ like an integrated system where I shouldn't expect every journey to involve negotiating new obstacles, unlike in my own city where any substantial journey is likely to involve understanding how the different bus and train companies have different ticket policies.
> Most interesting is the massive outlier in the main graph - Edinburgh.
Edinburgh shouldn't really be on a graph of non-capital cities, given it gets a number of economic benefits from being a capital city, e.g. being the centre of the Scottish legal system, seat of the Scottish government, most popular tourist destination in the country (as capital cities often are), etc.
When the case for Transport=>Productivity is introduced they talk about the GDP vs Population graph in France and indeed start presenting a neat little example that tells the story they want:
> For example, Lyon, the second largest city in France, is more productive than Marseille, the third largest city, which is in turn more productive than Lille.
Nice and easy, right? However that was a very interesting choice of city to stop at, because the next largest city - Toulouse - has a higher per-capita GDP than both Marseille and Lille. Then the fifth largest - Bordeaux - is higher than Lille and is mere a whisker shy of Marseille. Only after we skip over a number of tightly bunched cities do we see a bit of a cliff where St Etienne, Toulon and Montpellier are smaller and also relatively poorer. You can definitely see something if you squint your eyes and look at the graph, but to me it just looks like the French cities are more equal overall than the British ones. But we know that already if we compare GINI coefficients of the countries as a whole (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...).
Most interesting is the massive outlier in the main graph - Edinburgh. It has no metro system to speak of (save for a single expensive and much maligned tram line) and an OK-but-nothing-special bus network. It's certainly not a sprawling city, but it's not compact either.
The poorer British cities definitely need some love and investment, and improved public transport will undoubtedly be needed. But this article presents an oversimplification that makes me a little uneasy about accepting any of their conclusions.