In March 2024, there was a hustings for candidates standing to be the mayor of the new NE Authority. There was a big turnout (c300?). There were six candidates: Labour, Liberal, Conservative, Reform, Green and an independent, Jamie Driscoll, former Labour councillor in Newcastle and currently mayor of the North of Tyne authority. Driscoll has been hyper-active and makes big claims about his inside knowledge and achievements in that last capacity. He used to be associated with the left-wing faction Momentum inside the Labour Party and that may be the reason why he was blocked standing for Labour. Kim McGuinness, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria, is standing for Labour instead.
Each candidate made a brief statement and then answered questions. Overall, I was distinctly underwhelmed, though I may have been in a minority of one. Big Rock Candy Mountain politics dominated the evening. Candidate after candidate promised the best public transport network in the world, fully integrated, speedy, flexible, safe, comfortable and cheap, if not free. More buses! More trains! More train lines! More connectivity! More jobs! More data at the touch of a button! More passenger information! More security! [Little was said about cyclists and even less about pedestrians].
Only the Tory said he wanted that and the right of car drivers to drive around without restriction (no Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and Ultra Low Emission zones, plus, I suspect, no School Streets and any other impedimenta to his motoring desires). There again, he advocated the right to smoke and basically just do your own thing so there was at least consistency in his insanity. But he too was assuming Cornucopia, albeit arrived at by different means (ie private enterprise unleashed).
All candidates said they would “talk to the people”, “listen to what communities wanted” and otherwise follow the Popular Will. Given that the new authority covers some 2 million people, that is a lot of talking and listening! Driscoll mentioned Citizens Assemblies but their utility in such a complex sector as transport, unlike, say, a single issue such as abortion. All that is likely to emerge is a wish list like the above promises, in which there will be most ideas that are variously incompatible, unaffordable or ecologically unsustainable. There needs to be an overarching model of sustainable transport in which the appropriateness of rival modes, practicable volumes and specific priorities are judged.
Such models are two a penny on the Internet. Usually they are in the form of a pyramid at the top of which hierarchy is the pedestrian and at the bottom the private motorist. In reality one person sat in a car is routinely treated as far more important than one person on foot (or, for that matter, on a bike). The reality can be seen in spending priorities: https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4170504/study-times-spent-roads-active-travel-england#:~:text=Analysis%20published%20by%20the%20IPPR,active%20travel%20across%20the%20country. It can also be seen in the mantra of councils such as Newcastle that the priority is to “keep the traffic moving”. One consequence is that those on foot have lengthy waits at pedestrian crossings and short crossing times. Another is induced traffic since in the short term seemingly flowing circulation will attract more people to drive, thereby, in the longer term, bringing back congestion.
The candidates were asked what would be their priorities as mayor. From what I recollect they all seemed to give a variation on “a first class integrated public transport system”. This is really no priority since it depends on many actions (notice how the poor pedestrian and cyclist are left behind). The answer should surely be to start from the opposite direction, not from what people may want but the overriding challenge of today. That is clearly climate breakdown.
It was mentioned in the welcome speech at the start the event and most candidates made the necessary genuflections. Yet I was left with the feeling that no-one really understood the gravity of the situation, with the 1.5c target now lost and overheating accelerating. Nor did they seem to grasp that it would indeed “change everything” and radically so. There is no point proclaiming a “climate emergency” if there is no commensurate emergency action. The priority, then, should be immediate actions in the transport sector that would lead to the biggest, fastest and most sustained cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. All other goals will be lost if we do not take those steps first and put everything else lower down the rung.
It was revealing that no-one mentioned Newcastle airport where expansion is the order of the day (https://www.newcastleairport.com/about-your-airport/masterplan/masterplan-2035-summary/ ). Until prompted from the audience, no one mentioned that local land use plans have been encouraging car-dependent urban sprawl. No-one came out strongly for pedestrianisation and low traffic neighbourhood schemes (perhaps fearful of the motorist lobby). The consensus was that good public transport would lure people out of their cars. But there is evidence that this will not happen unless car driving is made relatively more expensive and more inconvenient ie some sticks as well as carrots (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230323-even-free-transport-can-t-shake-luxembourg-s-love-of-the-car ).
The climate emergency was mentioned at times. The Liberal candidate was particularly good on air pollution. But all treated the latter as a function of exhausts with no mention of the serious air and water pollution from tyres and brakes. No-one mentioned the effect on transport on wildlife (cf https://pelagicpublishing.com/products/traffication ). No-one mentioned the biggest impact of the transport sector: the vast amount of land it appropriates.
It might be noted here that Jamie Driscoll who carefully perches on the fence on many issues, came off it to back the dualling of the A1 through all of Northumberland. He mentioned the danger of ‘induced traffic’ but suggested nothing that would prevent the rebound effect that cancels out the benefits of extra provision. Indeed ‘better’ road and rail in Northumberland would also push up local house prices in towns such as Belford as longer distance commuting is enabled
Several candidates advocated more lighting and therefore more light pollution, with its attendant negative impacts on human and wildlife, as well as higher energy bills for councils. To his credit the Green Party candidate was the only one to mention the 15 minute neighbourhood concept and the need to reduce significantly road traffic in toto. He did not mention the widespread opposition to such ideas, in some cases linked to conspiracy theories.
Overall, no-one really seemed to grasp how the limits to growth are now bearing down on all fronts. It is not just climate breakdown. Peak oil is heading this with a vengeance. It will bring to an end the age of mass motoring. There is no substitute for the ‘master resource’ of cheap oil. But there are other limits too. Any attempt to electrify the current vehicle fleet (most candidate seem to think this desirable) would be an ecological catastrophe because of the mining it would necessitate. Indeed it could bring a new era of resource wars (https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/are-green-resource-wars-looming/ ). None of the candidates really seemed to understand how we face several ‘peaks’ and that in future years mobility (and digital connectivity) will be seriously curtailed.
But there is another trap here. All candidates seemed to assume that one way or another money could be found for a mass transport revolution. Yet total private and public debt is now at unprecedent heights, now measured in trillions. Repayment of the interest, let alone the principal ,in that debt depends on large-scale economic growth. Yet such growth is going to be ecologically curtailed. The result could well be a ruinous financial crisis on top of mounting ecological ills. There could be a new era of austerity that will bring to a halt the best laid big plans.
We need to figure out what comparatively modest schemes can be pursued in such a context, ones that bring the most social and environmental gains for what will be scarce monies.
Sandy Irvine's green blog 
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