South Gloucestershire Conservatives, the minority administration on their local council at the moment, are developing some great ideas for improving the transportation infrastructure in the area. While Bristol City Council are pondering the high-risk, high-cost approach of Bus Rapid Transit, the South Glos team have come up with a plan that will - without question - improve traffic flow. And it won't cost a penny.

The proposal, which is currently under review, is to liberate the peak "2+" lane on the A4174 Ring Road (technically not a ring), and let all vehicles use the road space.

"2+" lanes, or High Occupancy Vehicle lanes are a controversial approach to traffic management. In theory, they offer an incentive to drivers to self-organise such that the road is used by fewer vehicles, and thus reduce congestion. In practice there is very little evidence that they do anything other than introduce further "choke points" and make roads even more congested. But, there is at least anecdotal evidence of an increase in mannequin sales.

For all the talk of encouraging (i.e. forcing) people to change their behaviour, there is often little desire amongst planners to acknowledge the logical reasons why people behave as they do.

Our society has evolved to take advantage of the availability of personal vehicular tranport usage and our cities, towns and suburbs have adapted to suit people who use cars. Our choice of job, home and even leisure pursuits are linked in a chaotic web of opportunity costs, trade-offs and personal preferences.

In the Joint Local Transport Plan - the holy text of the high priests in the Urban Traffic Management & Control suite - a vision of the future of private motoring is offered:

• Recognise the important role of the car in providing essential mobility for many people.
• Manage car use as part of an integrated package of complementary measures.
• Reduce car-dependency by promoting viable alternatives.
• Reduce the environmental, financial and health costs of private motoring.
• Car strategy and the Shared Priorities
• Provide attractive alternatives so that people can reduce their dependence on the private car.

Notice the framing of private car ownership with the terms of substance abuse problems. Cars are recognised as providing "mobility", but the message is really that personal transport needs to be managed; that people are dependent on private motoring and suffer health costs, in a paradigm taken straight out of the Sociology text books.

Certainly behaviour does change in response to circumstances, but not quickly. And the ability of people to change their behaviour in response to such centrally planned action is often constrained by other bits of central planning.

Transport Planning - From "A" to "B"

Let's play at planning and do a little thought experiment, by modelling different types of journey. Consider someone who lives at Point "A" and works at Point "B" with two "modal options":

• Private Motor Vehicle (20 minutes journey duration)
• Mass Transit (35 minutes journey duration)

In this model, the individual making the choice might regard the bus as quite an attractive option; it takes a bit longer but you could just sit and read the paper. It's not a very good model, however, since it doesn't tell us much about real world behaviour. Let's make it a bit more complex:

• Through the influence of other road users, the car journey from A-B takes 20 minutes on average, but sometimes it can take as much as an hour due to traffic congestion
• The bus uses a dedicated BRT lane, so it has a predictable journey time
• The nearest bus stop is a short walk from home
• The buses run reasonably regularly, so the wait for the next bus is reasonably short and typically 4 minutes (this is only a quick blog post; life is too short for a Poisson distribution.)

The individual traveller has a choice is between 15-60 minutes in the car versus a predictable 41 minutes on the bus. What about another iteration?

• Citizen #1 marries Citizen #2, producing Citizen #3
• Citizen #1 gets a new job working at Point "C"
• Citizen #2 works at point "D"
• Citizen #3 attends school at point "E", dropped off by #1 in the morning, picked up by #2 in the evening.
• Citizen #1's elderly Mother lives at point "F", and he drops in to see her on the way home.
• Citizen #3 attends an after-school Ballet class at point "G"

In this scenario, the fact that a BRT route exists between A and B is not particularly helpful. And we haven't even begun to talk about money.

The two adults in this model might wish to move closer to where they work, but the Stamp Duty Land Tax on the property sale is a disincentive to this adaption, even if they could afford a house when the prices are driven up by restrictive town planning legislation (q.v green-belt vs brownfield). They might choose to send Citizen #3 to a school within walking distance of home, but none of the nearby state schools have good reputations. Citizen #1's mother could perhaps move closer, but if Mum was sensible and saved all her life, she'll has to pay all her own care costs due to means-testing, to say nothing of the Death Tax.

That's the trouble with central planning. Whether it be transport, schools or society, grand plans made from on high tend to run afoul of the laws of unintended consequences.

Planning and Directing OR Experimenting and Adapting

Perhaps we'd be better of with a bit less strategic planning. But then there'd be no need to employ strategic planners. The Government Office of the South West paid Atkins to continue this exercise for the million or so people in the Greater Bristol "Go-to-Work" area. Two years later, the result was the Greater Bristol Strategic Transport Study, which is the Joint Local Tranport Plan with extra brass knobs fitted. No planning means no consulting jobs.

It will be interesting to see how the road network will responds to opening up the 2+ lane will be. I wonder if there are any similar initiatives we could try in Bristol? Perhaps we could experiment with the "Naked Streets" concept: turn off a few sets of traffic lights and see what happens.

Late News - Stephen Williams enquires about higher taxes

Stephen Williams MP continues the collectivist (Lib Dem) crusade to squeeze the last bit of cash out of hard-working Bristolians by asking the following question in Parliament:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much revenue would be raised by an additional one per cent. on the basic rate of income tax in the fiscal year (a) 2007-08 and (b) 2008-09.

For Christ's sake, man, don't give them any ideas!

The answer he is given refers to an HMRC table of Direct Effect of illustrative tax changes. These tables imply a linear relationship between tax rates and tax revenue, although a concept known as the Laffer Curve proposes elasticity, which matches common sense in that if tax rates were lower people would spend less time and money avoiding the revenuers, and thus tax revenues would actually be proportionally higher. I hadn't realised that this concept dates back as far as the 14th century and is mentioned in the work of noted Arab historian Abu-Zayd Abdul Rahman bin Muhammad bin Khaldun.

The Museum of Bristol (hereafter MoB) is an odd project. At heart it's a rebranding of the old Bristol Industrial Museum (hereafter BIM), which was a big shed full of well-researched and interesting bric-a-brac organised by an appropriate taxonomy . (just like every other traditional museum in the world).

But there has been a laying-on of hands by grant awarding bodies, diversity officers, cultural commentators, sustainability consultants, transport planners, and other nabobs of the collectivist class. So what is the current rationale for the new MoB?:

"Its relevance to the people of Bristol in providing a cultural lever for engagement and
regeneration within the city is pivotal to the projects[sic] success."

I know what all these individual words mean, but when you put them together in this order I don't really get it. I'm not sure what a cultural lever looks like, but I reckon you could get one for less that £25 million.

The rebranding has been kicking around since 2001, but the current plans are driven by the availability of funds from the Hope Tax - the Heritage and Lottery Fund of the National Lottery - specifically a grant of £11.2 million.

Here's a quick run-through of the key documents*:

In September 2004, Bristol City Council conducted a consultation exercise about the MoB, which has yet to be published.

The Cabinet Agenda from 9th March 2006 (Item 12) links to the report that justified the go-ahead to apply for the grant.

The Cabinet Agenda from 23rd November 2006 (Item 6) links to the report that justified acceptance of the HLF funding.

The Planning Application is worth a look, as the supporting documentation includes all designs and related plans. It's available via the PublicAccess for Planning web application, searching for either Property UPRN 000000112209 or Application Reference 06/04643/FB

An excellent document in the electronic pile is the design report produced by architects Lab Architecture Studios, whose achingly hip website can be found here. This link might expire, in which case you'll need to search the Planning database using the UPRN above. As well as discussing the history of the buildings, it details the different attempts to develop the site, the directives of various government agencies and the iterations of the design. Best quotes:

In the May 2005 Council Elections, BCC changed from being a Labour Council to a Liberal Democrat Council. Fortunately Cllr Anne White, who had been instrumental in the initial appointment and development of the brief, was re-elected. [...]

After the public presentation of the scheme, and as a consequence of some public disapproval about aspects of the architecture, as well as the concept of the Museum of Bristol itself, a revised brief from BCC was presented to the Design Team. [...] The revised brief was so substantially different from the direction the Design Team had been developing for the last year that it has neccesitated the reassessment of almost every aspect of the scheme [..].

And an honourable mention to:

The revised brief (November 2005) instructed the Design Team to locate the entrance at the centre of the building. [...] The initial project brief requested a..."stunning" entry space.

There's nothing like giving SMART objectives, is there? You know: clear, unambiguous, objective objectives.

Pursuant to the decision of the cabinet meeting of 15th November 2007, the agreed budget for the project is now £24.7 million (up from £20.6 million). £11.2 million of that is coming from the HLF and £10.5 million is being borrowed from the bank (annual interest payments approx £900,000). Imperial Tobacco have also put £250,000 in the kitty.

Given that £1.4 million was spent on the first phase of the project, that leaves £2.65 million to find. Or does it? The trouble is that the grant only covers certain types of expenditure, and the accounting rules on local council capital expenditure also limit what you can stick on the never-never. Plus, if the project needs extra support from another department is that a cost to the project needing new funding, or a contribution from existing council spending?

The project team want £1.5 million from an S106 agreement (Section 106 of the Town & Country Planning Act (1990) probably paid by land developers of other properties around the wharf), and another £2 million from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, a charitable trust set up by the late Lord Hamlyn. What happens if they don't get the money? Will the council give the grant back to HLF and cut our losses or plough on regardless? Answers on a postcard, please.

Setting aside the project costs for the moment, when this is all complete the annual running costs of the MoB are projected to be £909,000 a year, not including the £442,000 vigorish payable on the extra £5.1 million of project costs voted through by the Cabinet. The operating annual budget for the BIM in 2001 was £329,000, and it received £303,000 funding from the "Renaissance in the Regions" funding - a programme paid for by the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council - which is not guaranteed for the new MoB.

[edit - a reader points out that the money from the MLAC is, of course, also taxpayers' money) 

Let's go through that again in slow motion. The BIM cost £329,000 year to run, funded largely (92%) by a central government grant, and generated a net income of £30,000 a year. The MoB will cost £909,000 a year to run, plus £442,000 juice for the bank manager and no guarantee of operational funding from anyone other than the Bristolian tax payer.

The next time some one tells you that it's free to visit museums in Britain, remember that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody is always paying. In this case, as analysed previously, every council taxpayer in Bristol will be paying a minimum of £7.00 a year to fund the MoB.

Bristol has some impressive museums , but you can see there's a budget crunch coming. One wonders whether the Red Lodge and the Georgian House will find themselves outmaneouvred by the politically sophisticated diversity crew at the Empire & Commonwealth Museum and the new MoB.

Addenda

1. If you look at the "Travel Plan" for the MoB, you will find that

"walking will be the key mode for the vast majority of people visiting the new museum".

Therefore, the projected 250,000 visitors a year (up from 130,000 remember) won't be needing parking spaces, will they? So that's why there are only 25 planned spaces, of which 7 will be permit controlled and 3 reserved for blue badged vehicles, for a total of 15 visitor's spaces for the museum. Oh - and there's no on-site coach parking for the 1-2 coaches a day that are expected either.

15 parking spaces. For a quarter of a million people.

2. There is of course an Equalities Impact Assessment for the MoB "to meet the needs of those disadvantaged by physical, social, intellectual, cultural, economic factors". I'm not quite sure who the intellectually disadvantaged are, or whether they'll want to come to a museum, but we can only hope.

But here's a problem - the summary given to the Cabinet reveals that the Abolition 200 content currently in circulation in Bristol will form a large part of the content of the MoB. Is it likely that you're going to get lots of new punters to come and see these exhibits if they've already seen them at another museum about a mile away?

And, finally

Some fantastic comments received from the public in response to the planning application:

"These buildings were designed to support a lot of weight in terms of cargo/freight. Surely they woud thereore be capable of supporting a swimming poopl/spa on the roof in the same manner as the one recently opened in Bath. The City needs such a pool and the views would be great. One could even imagine piping hot water from Hotwells to heat the pool and beat Bath at its own game"

"How about a model of Concorde on the top or even the real thing."

*I give the public sector a lot of flak about performance and management of taxpayer's funds. Having worked for a few central and local government organisations over the years, I've seen some dreadful decision making and awful project management. But I've seen the same thing in private sector organisations. Some of the best operational management in the world can in fact be found in the British civil service. The reason why some teams get it right where others get it wrong is a combination of having realistic goals and open exchange of information. As a taxpayer in Bristol I can get access to much of the data and documents relating to Council activities with far greater ease than if I were a shareholder trying to find out about the activities of a publically limited company.

The Gracious Address: 2007-08

The unofficial version

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons, we will take forward policies to respond to the rising aspirations of the people of the United Kingdom for a change of government; to ensure security for all members of the government; and to entrust more power to Parliament and the people, with a strong emphasis on Parliament.

We will continue to take money from your pocket to spend not as you would want, nor as we would want, but on that which we think you ought to want.

We will continue to throw money down the mine shaft that is the British education system. Institutes of learning will become day-release prisons for the feckless and the criminal. Employment will not be encouraged, but businesses will be subsidised to take on the illiterate and the innumerate in a cruel parody of apprenticeship.

We will continue to stoke the fires of the property market by controlling housing policy from Westminster.

We will continue to manage the health of the British people from Westminster, in particular by adding another layer of management to the NHS, and further regulation of what British women may do with their bodies.

We will regulate what constitutes the socially acceptable balance between work and family life, by destroying employment and removing the incentive to work.

We will seize monies from bank accounts without the permission of the account holders.

We will require small businesses to paper over the cracks in state social care by offering pensions. Consequently wages will be reduced, and employers will provide good pensions in principle, but no jobs in practice

We will tax the British people (by proxy) on their carbon emmisions, regardless of their productivity, dither over nuclear power and plough more money into economically unviable methods of power generation.

We will control traffic and public transport from Westminster. The sound of a meter flag dropping in a Taxi in Tredegar will reverberate around the Palace of Westminster.

We will work with self-appointed community leaders, legitimising the judgement of people not on the content of their character but on the colour of their skin.

We will pass another Criminal Justice Bill, creating new laws whilst failing to enforce existing ones.

We will define what it is to be British.

We will end common-law traditions of citizen-policing and turn Constabularies into Gendarmeries. Internment will become standard policy.

We will pursue policies to secure a stable and strong economy, with low inflation, sound public finances, and high levels of employment. We will pursue them, but never catch them. In the interim, entreprenuers and businesses will be expected create enough opportunity and productivity to pay off the debts accrued by the Government on your behalf.

We will take control of banking.

A Bill will be introduced to reduce regulatory burdens on business. [Note, I include this logical fallacy unedited, as satire would be superfluous.]

We are committed to openness and accountability, and to a strong Parliament able to hold the Government properly to account. Your accountability, we mean, not ours.

We will continue to allow representatives of Scotland to vote on matters pertaining only to the English and Welsh.

We will fund our parties with your money.

Estimates for the public services will be laid before you. They will be wrong.

We will continue the net transfer of money from the people of England and Wales to Scotland.

We will continue to transfer power from the individual to local government; from local to national government; from national to supranational government; from supranational to international government.

We will pay lip service to reducing global poverty, whilst subsiding our unproductive food producers to lower world prices, and maintaing strong trade barriers to prevent Africa from selling its goods in our country.

We will continue to work with the Government of Iraq to deliver security, political reconciliation and economic reconstruction. They may even return our phone calls this year.

We will continue to support the government of Afghanistan, regardless of their views on the rights of women and homosexuals.

We will start a war to stop a war.

We will maintain Britain's strong commitment to reaching a lasting peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, despite our natural inclination to support one side of the conflict more than the other.

Other measures will be laid before you, subject to the front pages of the major national newspapers, and BBC Radio 4's Today program.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons, I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may rest upon your counsels.

For comparison:

Queen's Speech: 2006-07

Queen's Speech: 2005-06

Queen's Speech: 2004-05

And for the history buff:

Archive of Queen's Speech 1994-2006