Germany with its excellent public transport offers some salutary lessons. Karlsruhe is often held out as a classic example of some of the finest joined up public transport to be seen in Germany. But talk to local people and you will find that the reason they are using it is because of the lack of parking places in the city centre. They just don’t complain about it because the alternative is so good! Meanwhile Munich which has a public transport network that most people in the UK can only envy is seeing patronage decline. This city, the home of BMW, is reluctant to impose restrictions on motorists.

Congestion charging is not the only way of constraining demand and encouraging behaviour change. Parking constraints are a powerful tool too.

If you restrict the numbers of places and charge more for parking you can reduce the number of city centre car commuters. But that doesn’t have to spell ruin for shopkeepers - time flexibility can see to that and, for example, having car parks with a four hour time limit on them and punitive rates for breaching them. Bus priority lanes, park and ride and bus only zones can all help make public transport a more attractive option.

Central Government has a role to play here too. It must set more demanding targets for local authorities and it must make sure money is being spent where it is intended. Too often local authorities focus on some important but easy options like traffic calming. Bus lanes and park and ride initiatives, for example, can be controversial with electorates in local authorities with small majorities or hung councils. The reality is that it is the politically difficult decisions that have an impact on our transport networks.

For the longer term the Government needs to take a more regional approach to transport planning. Although the North West fares better than many regions, the fact is that many travel-to work journeys take commuters through more than one local authority boundary. That is not joined up planning and needs to be addressed.

So what about the railways? Even with the finished WCML upgrade the network will have reached capacity - apart from a number of rural services - in 15 years. We have two choices – to either price people off the railways or to invest in new high-speed lines. The first would be unthinkable at a time when we are trying to encourage more people to use public transport.

And the second choice is not as off the wall as people might imagine. CfIT has just completed a study that shows there is potentially a good business case for UK high speed lines provided costs can be kept under control and we take account of the broader regional and political benefits. The railway lines would be completely new builds and provide additional capacity. Manchester to London journey times would shrink to just one hour 20 minutes.

Just imagine the economic benefits - the inward investment and tourist benefits this would offer the North West. And the new line would ease congestion on the current track spreading the benefits more widely. Fast journey times and new reliability standards would also encourage cars off the M6. A new line offering 50% more capacity than a three-lane motorway at around a third of the equivalent road journey time makes it a compelling option. So there is lots to do, some exciting opportunities and, if we face up to the political challenges, we can deliver some radical transport improvements in the North West.