The HS2 decision today has generated a huge amount of controversy with passionate arguments for and against the development over the last few months.

Such is the stuff of planning. It is about making difficult decisions which will impact on people and the environment, but crucially should benefit us as a society.

Inevitably, not all people will be happy with the decision reached.

However within our decision making processes there should be sufficient clarity and transparency so that people can understand the decision set within a managed process of dialogue, consultation and listening.

In particular there should be a clear linkage with other policy approaches that allows people to see the big picture even if they disagree with the final decision.

So let's examine this in more detail.

Now that the government has finally found enough money to allow the £600 million refurbishment of New Street Station and the Pallasades shopping centre to proceed it is time to stop pretending that this project will do very much to improve the passenger experience on trains running through Birmingham.
As Lord Adonis, the Transport Minister, has admitted, the hugely expensive makeover for New Street will not actually improve the capacity of the track and tunnels to cope with growing customer demand for more services.
Crucially, it will prove almost impossible to bring the next generation of high speed trains either to New Street or to Moor Street, according to Adonis.

The Post reports more angst about what to call the region from policy wonkdom. Post Political Editor Jon Walker underlines the continuing confusion about how the Big Wide World sees us West Midlanders - or should that be Greater Brummies? The policy wonks (sensibly for once) say we need a snappier name for the region to sell better abroad. But there seems as much chance of agreeing this as Kevin Keegan sending a Christmas card to the Newcastle club chairman.

As reported in the Post the rail regulator is leaning on Network Rail to clean up its act on disruptions to the rail network. This summer may not have brought much sun, but it's been a bumper season for shutting down the line to London and telling passengers they need to get on a bus (not what they paid their over-priced fares for...)

Having suffered a 3 hour nightmare bus journey to London from East Anglia recently, I sympathise. To be fair to NR, problems they may create by poor maintenance or unnecessary line closures are magnified by incompetent handling of passengers by train operators once we are forced to get off the train. In my case no information was given about journey time or destinations, so many of us got on a bus that stopped at all the intermediate stations to London when we should have been on the other bus that was heading straight to the Smoke. To cap it all, our driver didn't know where the stations were and we eventually decanted at Romford tube station after a very unmagical mystery tour courtesy of train company National Express East Anglia.

The national passenger body, Passenger Focus, has demanded a national code to tackle disruption. This will set out the sort of information passengers need and the plans each operator should have in place to manage any disruptions. But should it really be necessary to tell all these well-paid train managers how to manage?

The Post Story about over-zealous security folk banning visitors from taking snaps at the Mailbox has its echo on rail. Rail Magazine (www.rail-magazine.com) is running a bit of a campaign about the harassment of snappers at stations and other rail sites. This usually comes from contractors working on the railway, as Network Rail says it welcomes spotters and gricers.

Apparently innocent rail-spotting folk have been frog-marched off stations by security guards and the like having been told, Dad's Army ARP style, "'Ere, you can't do that !.."
A snapper on a public road overlooking current West Coast mainline works was also told not to take pictures by contractors - who sent a van to intercept him!

Interestingly, the British Transport Police Chief Constable says there is no power to stop genuine members of the public taking pictures on rail premises and (unlike at the Mailbox) there is a long tradition of photography in and around stations. Clearly the cops (who are best placed to assess any threats) are relaxed about snappers, but have some rail staff sacrificed another of our liberties to George W's War On Terror?

My good friends in RailFuture are getting hot under the collar about the New Street Gateway project. It's certainly open to criticism because it concentrates on delivering better facilities for passengers on the station but will do little to create more train capacity at the heart of the City. So rail supporters say scrap Gateway and go for a new station at Eastside, the so-called Grand Central.

But how realistic is this? While we need people to make the case for rail and to dream the dream, don't we have to start from where we are? And where we are is cash available from Government for the New Street make-over, plus City Council backing and likely buy-in from commercial interests. £600 million quid on the table is a reality, Grand Central is just an idea.

I'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE MAN.....
How many Liam Byrnes are there? The Minister for the West Midlands attends so many local conferences (despite having a couple of other small things to do, like run the national immigration service) that some think he's got a twin.

He was at Worcester Rugby Club earlier this year leading a discussion amongst the region's transport movers and shakers (sounds like some of the trains I've been on...).
At this gathering Mr. B mentioned new ways of raising cash locally for better transport. The hidden message was: with £400 millions coming from Government for the New Street Station makeover it's going to be hard wringing much else from H M Treasury.

Much as I'd like to see Government blank cheques with the West Midlands name on the pay line (provided they didn't confuse Geordie Newcastle with Newcastle -u-Lyme again), it would be much more grown up if we had the ability to raise local cash for better buses, trains and trams. Going cap in hand to Whitehall isn't good for the region - neither is it efficient.

Unfortunately with our local politicians bottling out on congestion charging - unlike the Greater Manchester council bosses - we have no alternative way of obtaining extra local funding. Centro, the transport authority for the old WM County does a major fund-raising job already. But don't we need this for the whole region, from Hereford to Leek, from Oswestry to Stratford?

ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH?
Have you lost out on compensation in recent rail changes? New local operator London-Midland/London City who took over from (unlamented) Central Trains is required by Government to run a new compensation scheme for late running. Called Delay & Pay, overall it's a better scheme - but only for longer distance passengers. You have to be 30 minutes delayed to get a discount on your season ticket. This means Centro area commuters will generally see their past 10% lateness discount under threat as most will not (hopefully) meet the new delay level. But while we all want the trains to run to time, why wasn't this mismatch spotted by the brains at Department for Transport who set up the new rail franchises and ordered the compensation changes? In the East Midlands there were talks about easing in the new scheme to minimize loss to users. Why didn't that happen here?

ARISE SIR FAT CONTROLLER?
The Queen recently knighted Network Rail boss Ian McAllister. This was not long after NR management failures disrupted the West Coast Mainline and forced thousands of New Year travelers (at Rugby and elsewhere) onto buses, when they'd paid to use the train. Even now there are still major West Coast line closures planned by NR to meet their ambitious programme of engineering improvements up to January 2009. And 3 top NR bosses still got their over the top bonuses despite passenger misery.
When HMQ gave McAllister his K my (entirely fictional) spies tell me it went like this:
HMQ: Mr McAllister I've some bad news and good news
McA: I'll have the good news first Ma'am
HMQ: Arise Sir Ian - the bad news is that Network Rail has just been fined £14 million quid....
Passengers' Chorus: We Are Not Amused.......by Network Rail's failure to get its act together.

On a different topic . . . I also write a regular "diary" column for the Birmingham Mail, the Post's sister paper. This contains funny (in theory) little stories about life at Westminster.

But there's one I don't think a traditional community paper like the Mail would accept, so I'll tell it here instead.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant (Con) attempted to convince Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly that any future high speed rail line - likely to run from London to Birmingham, if it happens - must also stop in his constituency.

Emphasising the misery that would be caused if it simply passed through Lichfield, he asked: "Does the right honourable lady understand that it is not much fun standing on a platform and a high-speed train sucks you off because of the turbulence . . ."

Sadly, he was interrupted at his point by fellow MPs who creased up with laughter. Even Ms Kelly had difficulty keeping a straight face.

Michael tells me: "I've been teased mercilessly ever since. One MP told me tickets for trains from Lichfield are now changing hands for £50."

I do not know how much money is spent on public relations by West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority.

But one thing I do know. Whatever the figure is, it is a shocking waste of money.

This organisation has for 20 years or more been a communications basket case and has as a result failed completely to get its message across. Even when it has something positive to say, it doesn't say it very well.

The latest debacle over the Midland Metro tram extension through Birmingham city centre is a case in point.
It has been clear for months that the chances of securing Government funding for the £180 million track from Snow Hill to Five Ways is somewhere between nil and nil.

If you're reading this maybe you're a busy commuter frustrated by how the Government and rail companies organise the railway; or perhaps a leisure traveller who got stuck in the New Year shambles created by Network Rail at Rugby?

Or someone who wants a better bus service to get to work - without roads' gridlock turning a 15-minute ride into a Shakleton-style expedition?

I'm a transport consumer rep. and activist living in the city centre. I sit on national and regional consumer bodies that keep an eye on public transport providers. I got involved because I'm a public transport user. I've also been responsible for public transport policy in a small part of our region in the past. I now try to rattle the cage of those who run rail, bus and Metro services to get something better.