Note: This is a stand-alone page without links (except to home page). To return to main pages, either close or minimise this window.

It's official! This Labour goverment has given up on trying to stop growth in road traffic. It has abandoned the promise by John Prescott and is already resorting to road-building. This shift in policy means that the environment will suffer and that the UK is very unlikely to meet its obligations on climate change.

See article below, reproduced from a new and lively magazine called 'Transport Times'. One of the editor/writers is David Begg, who was a government advisor before the government gave up on sustainable transport.

*****************************

Traffic Growth Gets Ok

The transport secretary Alistair Darling bluntly made it clear this week that he has shifted government policy to accommodate traffic growth.

But al though he says he wants to minimise damage to the environment, the consequences have a knock-on effect for the government's environmental targets. If traffic is allowed to grow unrestrained, it will wipe out all the government's planned carbon savings from other sectors and will jeopardise the government's long-term target for carbon reduction.

But the transport secretary is unapologetic. He believes his task is to cope with demands made by traffic growth. "You have got to construct a transport system that we can rely on but which is also mindful of our other obligations."

"There was a strand of thought," referring to John Prescott's claim that he could reduce car travel and congestion, "that this could bring all sorts of environmental benefits."

But he dismisses that approach as unrealistic. "Any policy which flies in the face of what people want to do is problematic."

The transport system Britain has is in part a reflection of price signals. Since 1980, bus and rail fares have increased by more than a third in real terms while the costs of motoring have decreased by 9%. Since 1997, during Labour's time in office, motoring has become 6% cheaper in real terms while bus fares have risen by 16% and rail fares by 7%. Asked whether he is content with these signals, Mr Darling replies: "There is no perfect answer. We have got to strike a balance between what rail passengers pay and what taxpayers pay."

Oct 2005

This is a stand-alone page without links (except to home page). To return to main pages, either close or minimise this window.