Press Release
Prescott's failure and the loss of New Labour's "Green Heart"
The Road Danger Reduction Forum's Response to "Transport 2010: The Ten Year Plan".
"I will have failed if in five years time there are not many more people using
public transport and far fewer journeys by car. It is a tall order but I urge you to
hold me to it". John Prescott interviewed in the Guardian, June 1997.
We do indeed hold the Deputy Prime
Minister to his words. New Labour came to power promising that the environment
would be at the heart of its policies. That heart is absent here as we have:
- ROAD BUILDING MADNESS:
"We did not expect the Government to be so short sighted as to turn the
clock back on road building to the Dark Ages" (Transport 2000, 20/07/2000).
The plan includes 100 new bypasses, whereas the discredited road building
programme of the last Government, which it was forced to withdraw amongst
a n increasing mountain of evidence that it would not solve congestion problems
and exacerbate environmental problems, only included 30 to 40. The amount
of expenditure allocated to widening motorways and new road schemes is only
about 20% less than
that allocated under "Roads to Prosperity". While the old road building package
has not been entirely resuscitated, we are concerned that our local
authority members will have to put up with extra motor traffic pouring off
widened motorways and other strategic routes.
- MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.
- The plan assumes both a
third Labour term and a firm commitment to adhere to a ten year plan.
Since the Government has turned it's back on something as fundamental
as road traffic reduction, the promise of funding for the desirable, sustainable,
transport initiatives is difficult to be certain about
- particularly as the overall context of the strategy is one based on
accepting increasing car dependency.
- Where there is funding for
non-car modes of transport, these are not necessarily alternatives
to car use.
It has still not been grasped that there is often no significant gain
in terms of reducing car use and dependence on cars by increasing long
distance travel by train.
- Where there are alternatives
to car use made, for example, by the increase in light rail provision
in major cities, these schemes are expensive and not cost-effective
compared to the low cost requirements of cycling and walking projects.
Our members with plans for city trams will welcome the support, but doubling
tram use represents a doubling of a very small proportion
of journeys.
- Many solutions to the problems
posed by excessive motor traffic are not solved by expenditure. Low cost
traffic management and road space re-allocation schemes release money
from the taxpayer that can be made available for other forms of public
expenditure or reduction in taxation. The current hysteria over supposedly
high fuel prices shows that motorists do not realise that they are not
paying the external costs
of motor vehicle ownership and use. The current approach will aggravate
this prejudice and make the alternatives to car use more difficult to
establish.
- WHAT ABOUT LOCAL TRANSPORT?:
The Plan allocates £59 billion, but £31 billion is spent of maintaining roads
damaged by motor vehicle traffic. It will also have to fund the high profile
(and expensive) schemes. The Plan recognises (6.34) that 45% of all journeys
are less than 2 miles with 35% made by car compared to 26% 15 years ago. Even
the RAC recognise that these are the journeys that can be made by bicycle
or foot. Yet provision for such schemes will not be ring-fenced. Above all,
without significant commitment to reducing motor traffic, restricting car
usage and commitment to maintaining local sustainable communities, our local
authority members will have to combat increased commitment to car usage that
inevitable competes with and hinders the more benign alternatives to the car.
- CYCLING AND WALKING:
"So we will be looking
for authorities to create more traffic calmed 20 mph zones, particularly around
schools and residential areas….treble cycling trips from the 2000 level by
2010. The substantial increase in local transport funding over the period
of this plan will enable local authorities to bring forward a significant
expansion of schemes to make walking and cycling easier and safer. Although
we do not in this Plan seek to ring-fence national provision for these purposes,
we do expect to see evidence in Local Transport Plans that local authorities
have developed and will complement strategies to secure substantial increases
in cycling and walking"(6.54) "Safety of pedestrians and cyclists,
especially children, must take priority" (3.5).
We will remind our local authority
members to take advantage of these promises as they complete their LTPs. However,
in the context of a strategy promoting car usage, measures to promote the
benign modes suffer as these schemes compete for space with car usage, as
these modes are made hazardous by car use, and because there is no overall
firm ring fenced funding commitment. The
National Cycling Strategy target for modal shift to cycling may well have
now become unattainable - although no Government Ministers in 2010 are likely
to commit hara-kiri because of this. There are no national targets for walking.
Although home zones and 20 mph zones are valuable, they do not of themselves
offer the changes required for sustainability - and without targets they will
exist in a much smaller proportion of roads than in some European countries.
Inn London there is a commitment
towards "safer routes to schools and better conditions for cyclists" (6.73)
and the completion of the London Cycle Network (originally submitted for completion
by 2000) is promised by 2010 in Chapter 10. Cycling and walking are not referred
to in the Introductory Chapter, or in Chapter 2 ("Progress"). In countries
such as Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands car usage is reduced
because of a share of cycling journeys substantially higher than the target
of the National Cycling Strategy - which is dubious following last Thursday's
announcement.
- SUSTAINABILITY AND REDUCING
CAR DEPENDENCE. The Government has abandoned motor traffic reduction.
The only target for a reduction is in congestion reduction (a difficult concept
to define and measure) in major urban conurbations by 8% - but this is where
car usage has often plateaued. The real problem areas for increases in car
usage and dependence are elsewhere. The Plan accepts congestion growth
of up to 7% in smaller urban areas and even more elsewhere. The key failure
of the Plan lies here.
- Rural areas. The attitude
here is to make rural bus services more accessible - yet this is approaching
the wrong end of the problem, however desirable superior bus services
will be. What is really needed is the provision of local amenities
- shops, banks, post offices, schools, hospitals and jobs. This is now
to become forgotten as society becomes more car dependent and even with
high quality bus services the non-car users in a significant minority
of households will still miss out on the advantages of car use.
- Local areas. Counties
like Germany have higher car ownership and lower relative levels of car
usage than Britain because of planning which facilitates non-car
usage (particularly
cycling) at the local level. None of this seems to be understood by the
authors of the Plan, despite the reference to the importance of local
short journeys in 6.34.
The Government has continued its backsliding from the limited promises of the Integrated
Transport Strategy and caved in to Mondeo man, the Daily Mail and established motoring
organisations. It will spend too much public money, increase car usage, and damage the local
and global environment. It will make it more difficult for Britain to achieve simple features of
a civilised lifestyle (such as being able to commute easily by bicycle),which are part of public
culture in so many places in Europe. We will advise our local authority members to use what
they can in the Plan as assistance for civilised transport and danger reduction policies, hoping
that their bids will be welcomed by Government. But we know that that this process will have
become hindered since the loss of Labour's Green Heart.
For
further advice contact: Ken Spence 01904 551331, Mike Baugh 01225 394254, Robert
Davis 0181 451 1309, Cathy McKenzie 0171 502 0406
Note to editors: The RDRF is a local government road safety organisation whose
membership includes 26 local authorities.