great transport debate public transport and sustainability: challenges for the next government...

Great Transport Debate

Public transport and sustainability: challenges for the next government

Stephen Joseph,

Campaign for Better Transport



• Charitable trust promoting sustainable transport• Support from wide range of interests• Co-ordinates environmental and other NGOs

concerned with transport• Commissions and publishes research • Conducts public campaigns• Promotes pilot projects and good practice


Challenges for next government

• Improve everyday transport

• Smarter transport spending, pricing and taxation

• If high speed rail goes ahead, maximise its sustainability


Principles

• Transport should play its fair share in reducing greenhouse gas emissions

• With budget constraints, focus on improving and maintaining what we have

• Give people real transport choices including reducing need to travel


Improving everyday transport

• Provide sustainable jobs

• Tackle climate change

• Increase opportunity

• Improve health and quality of life

• Connect communities


Provide sustainable jobs

• Support smarter choice initiatives: mainstream in local transport plans

• Invest in off-road walking and cycling routes

• Green buses

• Continued rail investment


Sustainable Travel Towns 2004-6 – can these be rolled out?

Darlington Car use

Public transport

Cycling

-11%

+ 14%

+79 %

Worcester Car use

Public transport

Cycling

-12%

+ 22%

+ 36%

Peterborough Car use

Public transport

Cycling

-13%

+ 13%

+25%


Tackle climate change

•A “transport test” for all new government policies and measures•A “walkability test” for public services (as with post offices)•Cut car travel for commuting and business with real tax relief for greener commuting; public sector should lead by example (teleconferencing, travel plans, car allowances)


Where’s the carbon?

CO2 emissions from passenger surface transport modes

Work28%

Education3%

Personal business20%

Recreation24%

Holiday7%

Other8%

Employer's business

10%

'Surface transport modes' include household cars, buses, coaches, surface rail, underground, light rail, taxis

Mainly single car drivers


Opportunity: removing transport as a barrier to employment

• Workwise programmes

• Wheels to Work

• Support bus pathways projects like Merseyside’s


Health and quality of life

• Continue funding for school travel plans so that by 2020 every child who can walk or cycle to school is doing so

• Make walking and cycling part of health promotion and anti-obesity strategies

• Make 20 mph the standard urban speed limit where people live work and shop

• Improve driving standards and increase traffic policing


Connect communities

• Provide transparent and comparative information on local bus performance

• Review rail fares regulation• Support demand

responsive transport and taxiplus services across rural areas


Door to door public transport

•Information: needs to be high quality, accurate, real time and easily available•Network-wide ticketing/ national smartcard•Guaranteed connections•Marketing: “metro” maps, branding etc•Personal security: CCTV, policing priority•Good interchanges and access to stops/stations•End to end bus priorityAbove all treat public transport as a priority network that decision-makers and car users might want to use


Smarter spending

• “Fix it first”: give priority to improving and maintaining the transport networks we have

• Shift from capital to revenue funding• Join up local budgets with more devolution (local rail?)• Save the bus!• Reform transport appraisal: reliability, carbon,

distributional impacts• Continued rail investment : new/refurbished trains, freight

upgrades and grants• Rail reopening not closures: they save little (and nobody

ever proposes shutting rural roads, telecoms, water, energy!)


Why spending on big roads is poor value

• Inaccurate forecasts and modelling

• Poor cost control• Latest appraisal downgrades

roads and makes other investment better value

In particular, spending £1.3bn next year on upgrading 21 miles of the A14 looks questionable


Price is critical

•Past trends show motoring and aviation costs have fallen in real terms, public transport costs have increased•Any transport policy taking carbon seriously must reverse this


Fares and costs

- If fares were reduced by 20%, a level more in line with the European average, bus travel would increase by 13% and rail travel by 17% by 2015

- Reducing bus and rail fares and increasing motoring and aviation taxes could cut carbon emissions from transport by 13% by 2025.

- Review regulation of rail fares (including RPI+1%) - New offers: “green miles”, carnets, smartcards, tax relief for greener

commuting


New opportunities for transport taxation and funding

• Lorry road user charging• Tax fuel on domestic flights• Per plane taxes• Business flights• New forms of transport funding such as tax

incremental finance


High speed rail – can it be sustainable?

• Extra funding, not abstracted from existing transport spending• Accompanied by measures to restrain rather than expand road and

air travel• Linked to local regeneration and upgrades of local transport• City centre stations not parkways• Linked to upgraded services on existing lines and land use policies

to focus development on those• Part of existing rail network, not separate from it• Landscape and biodiversity impacts must be avoided/minimised • How high speed is high speed?


Conclusion

► Focus on everyday transport, not just big schemes► Join up transport with other measures, policies and

budgets► Smarter spending, pricing and taxation needed► Accept that new communications technologies will

change travel demand and can be used to improve travel for users: seamless door-to-door journeys

And remember: transport isn’t a high profile political issue – but it can bite (Railtrack, road and fuel protests) and is a big local issue


For more information


bettertransport.org.uk

[email protected]

020 7566 6480

great transport debate public transport and sustainability: challenges for the next government...

Documents

transport test

transport commissions

better transport slide

public transport cycling

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great transport debate

great transport debate

sustainable transport