Michèle CBE DIX

Biographical note
Michèle started her career at the Greater London Council (GLC) after completing her PhD in transport and land use planning and became a chartered civil engineer through the GLC’s transport planning graduate scheme. She spent fifteen years in the private sector with Halcrow Fox becoming the board director for urban transport. She joined Transport for London in 2000 as director of Congestion Charging and Managing Director of Planning in 2007. Michele is now responsible for developing Crossrail 2 and gaining funding and powers for it. Michele is a visiting professor for UCL and is chair of international committee PRESCOM for the UITP. Michele has joined the Major Projects Association as a Board member and has become a Trustee for the London Transport Museum.

Presentation: The power of large transport infrastructure projects to substantially increase economic growth
Some schemes generate wider economic impacts, particularly through land use change, that go well beyond the benefits to transport users. If we don’t fully recognise these, we risk underinvesting in vital infrastructure and allocating investment in a way that is too focussed on existing rather than potential patterns of development.
TfL’s innovative case for Crossrail 2 pushes at the boundaries of current appraisal practice. The methods of estimating the economic impacts are informed by the specific context of the scheme; this recognises London’s unique ability to host self reinforcing agglomeration driven growth in and around its centre. It depends on an expanding supply of labour, with the transport system playing a critical role easing bottlenecks and unlocking new housing. Without this, the growth process would go into reverse; this needs to be seen as the economic baseline against which the scheme is judged.