Transport worsening the housing crises?


In this post we are going to discuss how increased fare costs have had a malign impact on labour markets and worsened the housing market for the average worker in the UK, what going back to the relatively low fares would do and how the government caused and can improve the position we are in.

I'm writing this post after booking travel between Southampton and Nottingham, which outraged me just how expensive it was to go see my friends up north. With the cost to grab the train there above £100, it would be cheaper to fly there,  but being a student with not much funds to my name, I was forced to grab a coach at the expense of it being 4 hours longer. It got me thinking there is no way other developed nations experience the same issue, is there? Well on my trip to Japan, I was amazed, I could travel just as far in a bullet train at a fraction of the cost. Now, of course this was massively supported by their currency being insanely cheap, but even looking into Europe, it is evident that we are paying nearly double for public transport, especially compared to northern Europe. 

This discrepancy isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a structural issue with far-reaching economic consequences, its a hidden tax on mobility. For workers, particularly those in lower-income brackets, it restricts access to better job opportunities in other cities or regions. If someone in Southampton is priced out of commuting to a better-paying job in London or Bristol, they’re effectively trapped, locked out of the very labour markets that could help them climb the ladder.

The knock-on effects don’t stop there. When people can't commute affordably, they are forced to live closer to work, which increases demand for housing in already expensive urban cores. This puts further pressure on housing supply and pushes prices up even higher. At the same time, cheaper towns or cities lose out on economically active residents, creating regional imbalances and deepening the productivity divide between north and south.

Well whats caused this problem? Well once again we can thank the big wave of privatisation (this time not Thatcher who was opposed to the idea). With the privatisation of rail it lead to mass underinvestment in cross-country transport, and although the government has announced the renationalisation of major rail lines, this error in their decision making has left us decades behind what we could be, as these firms payed massive salaries to their incompetent CEO's while also sucking us tax payers through the subsidies the government provided, while also raising prices extorting us workers under the name of 'market effieciency', and even under renationalisation prices are likely to remain high to try and recoup the lost 30 years of investment into the industry.

 source: https://fullfact.org/news/rising-cost-public-transport-leaving-us-out-pocket/


Since the privatisation of the railways in the 1990s, the UK’s transport system has become a patchwork of fragmented operators prioritising profit over public service. What was once a national network designed to connect people and places has morphed into an overpriced, unreliable, and increasingly exclusionary system. While countries like Germany and the Netherlands have invested in efficient, integrated networks with capped fares and seamless ticketing, the UK has fallen embarrassingly behind. Even short journeys into London the quote "heart of the country’s economy", can be eye-wateringly expensive. I remember a recent trip from Southampton, just 40 minutes outside the capital, where a peak return ticket cost nearly £50. For many, especially those on modest wages, this is simply unaffordable. This pricing structure doesn’t just drain wallets; it drains potential, it hinders true market mechanisms. Fixing the cost and accessibility of regional rail wouldn’t just ease the burden on workers; it could be the key to rebalancing the UK economy, finally allowing other cities to thrive instead of living in London’s long shadow, More importantly it could; allow for better integration of towns that have been isolated due to such barriers, decrease our housing costs, lead to more competitive wages, reduce structural unemployment, and even stimulated the economy as people would be more willing to see everything our amazing country has to offer.









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