“Connecting the Union” analyses the perception of public transport connectivity between the four nations of the United Kingdom. It responds to a core aim of Peter Hendy’s Union Connectivity Review – to widen the benefits of cohesion across the UK – by using a method which emphasises journey opportunities, not the actual journeys common to conventional assessment. Public transport inter-nation connectivity is summarised, then further probed to reveal three strategic truisms:
- Union connectivity may be more local in character than the term suggests, especially for Wales.
- The negative power relationship of distance renders egalitarian policy aspirations undeliverable in practice.
- Rail is suited to perceived long-distance connectivity, aviation to actual travel.
Spain demonstrates a natural evolution of territorial cohesion from the high politics of physically linking territory, to an embedded service connectivity which reflects the character of place. Some suggestions are made for assessing something similar in the UK.
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