Not motoring
Extortion tactics
Gavin Stamp
The lot of the non motorist is often not a happy one. Despite the protestations of governments and local authorities, so much in modern life is planned regardless of any consideration of economy, equality, ecolo- gy or plain common sense but only on the assumption that you have a car or, if not, are a travelling businessman on expenses. So our governments still seem content to encourage air travel while starving the rail- ways, even though jet airliners are noisy, polluting and wasteful of fossil fuel. And then there is that sinister alliance between the air industry and road interests, making sure that taxis have a virtual monopoly of non-driving traffic to and from airports and so can exercise what is virtually a form of extortion.
I had my fill of this form of extortion last weekend. I had to fly from Glasgow to
Cardiff to attend a conference of the hand- ful of long-suffering impoverished anachro- nisms like myself who teach history in schools of architecture. Glasgow prides itself on having been City of Culture and is now City of Architecture and Design, yet it has never managed to create a rail link to its over-developed, fog-bound airport even though existing railways are nearby. There is a bus service, but it is not that convenient or easy to detect. As it transpired, a taxi to the airport from the city centre was a necessity: £16.
Cardiff is even worse. Cardiff Interna- tional Airport it proudly proclaims, yet it is sited over ten miles from the city and approached by minor roads. It is almost fraudulent in its inadequacy. Naturally there is no rail link, nor one even pro- posed, and the bus service is pathetic. Another expensive taxi ride was not to be avoided: £17, leaving me on arrival in my all too frequent state of non-motoring rage.
Which was a pity as I like Cardiff; or, rather, I like the city centre. It is almost ideal: the commercial area is compact, with good Victorian and Edwardian buildings and interlaced with several thriving glass- roofed arcades. And right at the end of the high street is the city's great monument, the castle: intimidating and yet deliciously absurd as most of it is a superb neo-medi- aeval working fantasy designed by William Burges for that extraordinary patron of the arts, the 3rd Marquess of Bute. And right next to the castle grounds is Cathays Park, the finest civic complex in Britain begun at the turn of the century on land sold by the Butes to the city and on which now proudly stand the City Hall, the National Gallery of Wales, the university, the law courts and other Edwardian Baroque stone piles.
What could be better? Yet, a decade ago, when euro money and other forms of official largesse seemed to be sloshing around, the city fathers and their commer- cial allies decided to look away from the compact centre and redevelop Cardiff Bay. Now, as the docks which made Cardiff great have closed, regeneration is obviously a good thing, and there is a surviving core of interesting Victorian buildings fully deserving of love and care. But this was not enough to satisfy their ambition, and an attempt was made to try to shift the city's centre of gravity. First came the South Glamorgan City Hall, a sort of enlarged Tesco out-of-town supermarket. And then, following the establishment of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation in 1987, it was decided — why? And who by? — to plonk other public buildings down by what used to be 'Tiger Bay'. The Welsh Assem- bly building — by, surprise, surprise, Richard Rogers — is to be here, even though the City Hall, one of the finest Edwardian buildings in Britain, is now redundant and crying out for such a use. And now there is to be the Welsh Millenni- um Centre containing a concert hall while much more is promised. The one institution which might have been usefully located here was the rugby stadium but, instead, the money earmarked for the abortive opera house was spent on making Cardiff Arms Park into the Millen- nium Stadium, a huge monster right in the city centre which is the last place such a thing should be. So much for civilised pri- orities. As for the bay itself, a barrage has been built to convert it into a freshwater lake regardless of widespread concern about the effect on wildlife and ecology. The purpose seems to be to attract floating gin palaces and thus encourage the build- ing of marinas.
All this might seem the sort of thing that goes on, and up, in many ambitious cities and, indeed, it might even work if it were not for the fact that Cardiff Bay is about a mile from the real centre of Cardiff and virtually no thought seems to have been given to how people are going to get there — other than by car, of course: half of the development seems to consist of car parks. 'The Waterfront Capital in Europe's Future' it says proudly on a hoarding. Yet I cannot imagine any serious European city planning such a regeneration without thinking about the infrastructure first. And that means public transport systems. At present, there is an infrequent and unreli- able bus service, and a railway service (not on Sundays) on an old ramshackle line to Cardiff Bay Station from Queen Street rather than Cardiff Central Station. And even that was proposed for closure. All that at present is planned is to create 'Bute Avenue' parallel with the existing railway and the long, straight and dreary Bute Road, when what is needed is an extension of the line to the waterfront and its integra- tion with a light railway or tram system running through the centre of Cardiff. That should have happened first, not last.
Cardiff — like Glasgow — seems to be obsessed with cars. Yet, for Cardiff Bay to work, for people to go there for the evening — to concerts, restaurants or whatever — a civilised alternative to driving is essential. If Cardiff wants to be taken seriously as a cap- ital city, it will have to do better and think harder. As it was, after having walked to Cardiff Bay to inspect the pretentious beached whales on the waterfront and hav- ing had to take yet another expensive taxi back to the ridiculous, inconvenient 'Inter- national Airport', I could only conclude that the city's ambitions were a sham. Even Mussolini managed things better.
I'm worried, my wife's gone Christmas shop- ping and she can carry ten times her own bodyweight!'
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