Political Correspondent Simon Page explores why progress on the Government's pledge to tackle the nation's transport problems has been as slow-moving as the A1 during rush-hour

WHILE the need to deliver its promises on health, education and crime has driven much of the Government's agenda during the past five years, Tony Blair's other big political headache has been transport.

Although the three big issues touch most people to varying degrees at some point in their lives, just about everyone depends on some form of transport in their daily life.

It also seems that, for the time being at least, this particular headache is getting worse and that it needs more than a few painkillers to cure.

Apart from Old Labour calls for the railways to be re-nationalised, there were little clues about what New Labour would do for transport in its 1997 manifesto.

Soon after the victory, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott promised an "integrated transport policy", but it was soon shunted into the sidings as Labour looked to more pressing priorities.

Chancellor Gordon Brown's adoption of the previous Conservative Government's tight spending limits for the first two years left Mr Prescott with little room to manoeuvre.

He then set himself up as a hostage to fortune with a promise that he would have failed if, after five years, people were not using more public transport and making fewer car journeys.

But it was only in July 2000, when public concern about the performance of the railways after a series of accidents grew to a clamour, that Mr Prescott was allowed to present his ten-year plan, involving £180bn to be shared equally between rail, roads and local authority schemes.

As well as helping to solve the nation's transport problems, he argued it could create 60,000 jobs.

Because of this delay, congestion has remained on an upward curve - annually costing many billions in lost productivity, and damaging both health and the environment as each of the country's 22 million cars emits two tons of carbon dioxide a year.

But the alternative to the car - the railways - had been fragmented by privatisation, and the scale of its infrastructure problems was highlighted by the disruption caused by the drastic programme of track repairs needed following the Hatfield crash.

Many applauded Transport Secretary Stephen Byers' decision, last autumn, to refuse to pour more money into the privatised Railtrack's black hole. But it led to a fiasco over the question of compensation for the company's shareholders - and the still-unresolved issue of what will replace it.

The beleaguered Mr Byers is tipped to be the main victim in the expected Cabinet reshuffle this summer.

This week he said he had "no regrets" about the decisions he took on Railtrack. They were "the right ones", he said, and he was confident of "real improvements".

Of course, there have been a few transport success stories.

In the North-East, the extension of the popular Tyne and Wear Metro to Sunderland is due to be officially opened by the Queen on Tuesday.

And, despite the problems on the railways, the East Coast Main Line is generally recognised as the fastest and most reliable in the UK network.

However, on the roads, the cross-Pennine A66 still remains a deadly mixture of dual and single carriageways, with long-promised improvements as far away as ever. So, too, are plans to upgrade the A1 to a continuous motorway from London to Edinburgh.

The North East Chamber of Commerce (NECC) estimates that between £750m and £1bn of improvements are needed in the region - with no firm promises other than a vague agreement by Transport Minister John Spellar last month that "more needs to be done".

NECC President John Irwin said: "We have a first-class region with a second-class transport infrastructure."

To him and his 5,000 members, transport is crucial.

"At the end of the day, what industry looks at is good transport, and we haven't got it at the moment. Not only is it hindering expansion but it is putting off those who are already here," he said.

The £180bn promised in Mr Prescott's ten-year plan raised many hopes, but a third of it relies on matched-finance from the private sector.

The indications, from the difficulties over Railtrack to the troubled Public Private Partnership proposals for London's Underground, suggest that the private money will be very slow in arriving - if it comes at all.

But perhaps the best indication of how far Labour is from delivering its promised integrated transport policy came in the aftermath of last year's Great Heck railway crash, near Selby, North Yorkshire, when a Land Rover plunged down an embankment into the path of a train. The Northern Echo exposed the shocking state of at least 50 bridges on the East Coast Main Line.

Since then, there has been complete disagreement as to who is actually responsible for their repair - the Government, local authorities, Railtrack or the Highways Agency? North-East councils stumped up the money to update the most dangerous of bridges, but are understandably unwilling to pay for those less urgent repairs that they do not feel are their responsibility.

If the Nirvana of an integrated transport policy is to be reached, then the most basic of problems like this will have to be resolved as a priority.