The Transport White Paper
An advance briefing from TRANSform Scotland, July 1998Following numerous delays, the Government is finally expected to publish its White Paper on Integrated Transport, the first White Paper on transport policy for over twenty years, later this month. This briefing sets out what TRANSform Scotland would like to see in the White Paper. Please note that separate papers are to be published by the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) for the UK and by the Scottish Office (SO) for Scotland, perhaps on Monday 20th July and Wednesday 22nd July. The details of Gordon Brown's 'Comprehensive Spending Review', announced on Tuesday 14th July, will indicate what level of expenditure the Government intends towards transport, and whether sustainable transport measures are to be supported. Contents:
Changing the direction of transport policy.The Government accepts that the forecast growth in road traffic is "clearly unacceptable, because of its economic and environmental effects." We fully agree with Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott that the Government "will have failed if in five year's time there are not many more people using public transport and far fewer journeys by car." He told Parliament last year: "the British people are in the mood for radical change and I am a mood to give it to them." Despite reports that the White Paper may have been watered down at Tony Blair's behest, the White Paper is still likely to contain a number of radical measures.Context: traffic levels still growing...Traffic - car use and ownership - has grown hugely in the past 50 years. Walking, cycling and public transport use have declined, but the real change has been extra mileage: people travel further to do the same things. The traditional answer to traffic growth has been to build more roads, but it is now clear that it is not possible to solve congestion by road-building because it has been shown that this in itself will generate more traffic.The latest Government forecasts suggest that the level of traffic on Britain's roads will grow by 38% by 2016, and 60% by 2031, if past trends continue. However, even if all the roads ever planned were built, congestion would merely grow more slowly. Dr. John Adams of University College London has worked out that forecast traffic growth could only be accommodated on a road from Edinburgh to London 257 lanes wide, with an area the size of Berkshire at either end to park all the cars in! So the simple answer is that we can't go on as we are. More roads and car parks will not work - they will merely add to health and environmental problems, and further penalise the economy. Context: environmental damage and social dislocation...Air pollution. Road transport is the major source of toxic air pollutants in the places people live and work, with traffic fumes linked to respiratory illnesses such as asthma and to cancer. Friends of the Earth Scotland, using Government figures published earlier this year, estimate that 2000 premature deaths in Scotland every year are caused by exposure to air pollution.Global climate change. Road transport causes a fifth of the UK's carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is the principal cause of climate change and emissions from the transport sector as a whole are forecast to grow by 37-51% by 2020. Road casualties. Road traffic accidents are still a major cause of premature death and disability in Scotland. Scotland's pedestrian road death rate is one of the worst in Europe, with our child pedestrian casualty rates even worse, being the major cause of death for children under 14 years. Social exclusion. In Scotland, 42.6% of households have no car (1991 Census); in Glasgow nearly two-thirds of households do not have access to a car. Hence a car-based transport system immediately excludes a large proportion of the population.The growth in traffic creates a two-tier society: many poorer families, as well as older people and a proportion of the disabled population do not or cannot own cars. These people find their access to jobs, shopping and recreational facilities is getting worse and that alternatives to the car are increasingly unavailable. Meanwhile adults with cars must travel further because corner shops are disappearing and workplaces dispersing. Even in 2031, at current rates, a fifth of all UK households will still not own cars. Costs on the economy. Current estimates suggest congestion costs the UK economy between £7-19 billion annually, while if current forecasts come true, the cost could double. There is little linkage between transport and economic performance: the recent report of SACTRA (the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment), in perhaps the widest-ranging study ever on road-building and economic growth, concluded that there was no evidence for an unambiguous link between transport infrastructure and local regeneration. That is, new roads could have the effect of sucking economic activity out of local economies rather than benefiting them. Land take & destruction of the countryside. New roads, and development following them, have involved large-scale housing demolition, and have destroyed large areas of countryside. Development structured around cars takes up large areas of land. Road transport is a significant contributor to a host of other environmental problems including oil pollution, noise pollution, road runoff and the destruction of wildlife sites through road-building, mining and quarrying. Context: motorists don't pay their way...Motoring organisations are very keen to tell people that car and lorry drivers pay more taxes than they receive back in government expenditure on roads and other facilities. This is nonsense. These calculations only take into account the direct costs of motoring.Studies suggest that the real costs are much higher. Calculations by Professor David Pearce of University College London, one of the UK's foremost economists, suggest that the costs road users impose on the rest of society exceed the taxes that they pay by a factor of three. While all road taxes that the Treasury received were calculated to come to £16.4 billion (i.e. fuel tax and Vehicle Excise Duty), road transport in the UK imposed costs of between £45.9 and £52.9 billion on the economy (made up of congestion costs £19.1bn, air pollution £19.7bn, noise pollution £2.6-3.1bn, road damage £1.5bn, accident costs £2.9-9.4bn, climate change costs £0.1bn). [Figures from 'The True Cost of Road Transport', D. Maddison et al, Earthscan,1996. Figures used are at 1993.] Even Pearce's calculations may be an underestimate, omitting other hidden subsidies to car use such as: company car subsidies, policing costs, licensing costs, new road-building, etc. These figures indicate a £30 billion subsidy to car users each and every year. With around 23 million cars on the road in the UK, that is more than £1000 subsidy per car every year. In general, motorists now face the lowest real costs of car use ever, as against considerably increased public transport prices. The challenges for the Government:'An integrated transport policy.'But what does this mean? It has often been said that nobody can define what an integrated transport policy looks like. In fact, Ministers like Gavin Strang have been quite specific that it means integration at a number of different levels:'Carrots' and 'Sticks'.It is imperative that 'carrots' to public transport use (e.g. bus priority, lower public transport fares and higher service quality) are balanced by the 'stick' of increased costs for car use, so that motorists contribute fully to the economic, social and environmental costs they impose. A policy entirely reliant on 'carrots' will be neither effective nor financially feasible so long as motoring is underpriced and under-regulated at the point of use. Instead, there should be immediate recognition that many road users are under-contributing to costs arising while, at the same time, many fares are too high to make public transport use attractive compared to the perceived costs of car use. Early steps to transform this situation by increasing car use costs and parking charges should have the highest priority, with most resulting income being locally available for green transport programmes and traffic calming.'National transport targets.'The inclusion of targets is essential if the Transport White Paper is to provide clear guidance to policy makers at national and local level. The Labour Party is committed to setting "national transport targets" which will "form the framework for the definition, by local government of more specific targets for their strategies".However reports suggest that the Government may back away from setting a national target for traffic reduction. Earlier this year, Ministers insisted that the Road Traffic Reduction (UK Targets) Bill be redrafted to include a sub-clause saying "the Secretary of State is not obliged to specify targets ... if he considers that other targets, or other measures, are more appropriate for the purpose of reducing the adverse impacts of road traffic" even though in that case he "must explain his reasoning and include an assessment of the impact of the other targets or other measures on road traffic reduction". 'Hypothecation' of funds.'Hypothecation' is simply where the government decides that it wants to ring-fence taxes raised from one area of public policy and to spend these funds on that same area. This is something that transport experts have insisted on for decades.It now looks as if the Treasury has relented and will allow hypothecation to happen, although with perhaps not all funds raised going back into transport. Press reports (e.g. Independent, 9/6/98) suggest that John Prescott has won this particular battle with the Treasury, and that funds raised will be allowed to be ring-fenced to be spent on sustainable transport projects. What TRANSform Scotland wants to see in the Scottish White Paper.Adequate support for sustainable transport programmes in Scotland will depend on political will to apply an 'Urban Fuel Surcharge' and other measures of road pricing, with resulting income being ring-fenced for investment throughout Scotland in traffic calming, better road maintenance, much improved public transport and facilities for pedestrians and cyclists, and enhanced provision for rail freight and coastal shipping.
For the Government's new transport policy to be successful, it must set traffic reduction targets, and include firm policies to ensure that those targets are met. We would like to see a minimum commitment to stabilisation of road vehicle miles by 2005, with reductions in following years, both in terms of total passenger miles and in tonne miles per head of population. Such a target is essential to ensure that transport in Scotland plays
some part in meeting the Government's commitment to cut carbon dioxide
emissions by 20% on 1990 levels by 2010. However cuts in traffic would
also contribute to a substantial reduction in a range of other environmental
impacts from transport, to the prevention of congestion and the creation
of a more socially inclusive transport network. At this year's Budget, Gordon Brown committed an additional £500 million to public transport over the next three years for the UK (£50 million for Scotland). However, this is but a start: we want to see specific commitments to improve service quality (e.g. integrated inter-modal ticketing, high quality information, improvements in personal security), reliable interchange and integration between trains and buses and cycles, priority measures for buses, and improved accessibility for passengers. It appears likely that a UK Strategic Rail Authority will be set
up, although the Scottish Parliament will have rail franchising powers
ceded to it. However, we would like to a see a unified regulatory
framework for longer-distance transport, with the regulation of regional
and localised transport becoming a matter for legislation by the Scottish
Parliament. For buses, we would like to see the Bus Fuel Duty rebate
enhanced in return for partnership commitments on service quality
and fares. For rail, passenger franchise agreements to ensure commitments
for an expanded passenger fleet, investment in new routes, rail frequency
improvements on specified routes and maximum fares similar to those
specified in future rebates of Bus Fuel Duty. Half of all journeys are under 5 miles: for these shorter journeys,
walking and cycling must be promoted, recognising the health benefits
of these modes of transport and their role as the 'greenest' modes
of transport. We want to see national and local targets for transferring
short journeys from cars to walking and cycling. Progress in enhancing
conditions for safe and pleasant walking (incorporating the expansion
of 'safe routes to school', reducing the amount of school escort travel),
and guidelines for higher minimum levels of local council spending
on pavements, footpaths and cycling. Car traffic must be made to pay for the environmental and social damage that it causes. The White Paper should include powers for councils to charge for road use ('road pricing' or 'congestion charging'), for example driving into a city centre, and enable councils to levy a charge on non-residential parking spaces. The key issue is whether councils will be able to keep the money they raise from these charges or whether the Treasury will take it all, or cut other council funding instead (see 'hypothecation', above). Parking taxes. We would like to see the introduction of a
charge on the provision of free parking to discourage car-based development
and/or introduction of a greenfield development tax. A charge on private
non-residential parking spaces (including out-of-town spaces) might
well be promoted in the White Paper, despite opposition from supermarket
companies. Congestion charging. We expect to see a pilot road pricing
scheme in Edinburgh (with net income used for sustainable transport)
introduced, and support for other councils who wish to implement road
pricing schemes. Existing targets for fatality and casualty reduction must be promoted, with particular attention paid to cuts in child, pedestrian and cycling casualty rates. The DETR estimates that 70% of cars break 30mph speed limits on urban roads, while 91% of articulated lorries break 50mph speed limits on dual carriageways. Speed policy should be reviewed to introduce revised and enforced road speed limits, promoting safety, smooth flow, reduced noise and reduced emissions. These would include e.g. 65 mph speed limits (55 mph for heavy lorries) on high standard roads, 50 mph on most other non-urban roads and the addition of 5 to 20 mph zones to existing limits of 30 and 40 mph. We would expect to see support for extending traffic calming, and
the establishment of pilot 'Home Zones' - residential areas where
speed is reduced to 5 or 10 mph, allowing children to play in the
streets in safety. While car transport needs to be made to pay for the costs it imposes,
the Government has to take account of the basic accessibility needs
of all sectors of society, including people with disabilities, low-income
households, and rural dwellers. We would like to see revenue support
for rural buses improved from the £50 million per year announced
in the Budget. The Scottish White Paper should however recognise the
variety of rural locations within Scotland from, for example, relatively
urbanised East Lothian to "deep rural" North West Sutherland. The White Paper is expected to commit to expanding practical projects
that can unhook people from depending on car travel. These include
'green commuter plans' (now adopted by several employers including
Boots, Hewlett Packard, Royal Mail & DHL) which give employees
car-sharing opportunities and promote public transport, cycle &
walking alternatives; home shopping; setting-up car-clubs (where people
can join a club which allows them to share ownership of cars within
a car pool); establishing car-free areas e.g. for housing, shopping
and leisure activity; and 'safe routes to school' for children. The White Paper is more likely to announce voluntary powers for Local Authorities to use 'road pricing' or a 'private non-residential parking tax' (see above) rather than announce new national tax policies. However, we would like to see commitment to raising existing national taxes on car use, or introducing new taxes, in future Budgets. Some examples of this are below: Improved grants for rail and sea freight. The restrictive criteria for the Freight Facilities Capital Grant Scheme (which provides Scottish Office funding) needs to be eased, in particular by increased scope for new regional intermodal railheads and coastal shipping to attract Government funding in recognition of the environmental benefits of getting heavy freight off the roads. The Roads Review & Scottish Transport Planning Guidelines.The Scottish Office will also be issuing draft consultation documents on both the transport Planning Guidelines and the Roads Review either at the same time, or immediately after, publication of the Scottish White Paper.Transport and planning guidelines.A revised draft National Policy Planning Guideline (NPPG) on 'Transport & Planning' is to be issued. In England & Wales, Planning Policy Guidance 13 (PPG13), which called for tough controls on car-based out-of-town development, has been in force since 1994. In Scotland, we still await the equivalent guidelines for development.We would like to see the revised NPPG include a review of all major new developments and Structure Plans to ensure that planning decisions support sustainable settlement patterns encouraging shorter car trips, cuts in heavy lorry movement and increased reliance on walking, cycling and public transport. Planning permissions should have conditions to achieve these objectives, including the provision of frequent, high quality public transport from the start of all major developments linked with traffic calming and better conditions for walking and cycling from adjacent areas. All major new developments and Structure Plans should prioritise the greener transport modes. We would also like to see maximum housing density limits replaced with minimum density and minimum space limits, and to replace minimum parking requirements for new development with maximum standards so that development in urban areas rather than out-of-town sites is encouraged. Road-building and 'Corridor Packages'.As the Scottish Office is currently reviewing the trunk roads programme, it is unlikely that the Scottish Office White Paper will say much specifically about individual projects (although the DETR White Paper may have more to say on this topic as the Roads Review is more advanced in England & Wales). However, the White Paper must contain clear statements rejecting road-building as a solution to traffic congestion.New roads, if built, would generate additional traffic and undermine plans for traffic reduction. We are calling on the Government to abandon certain schemes (e.g. M74 Northern Extension, M80 Kelvin Valley route, and plans for a continuous dual 3 lane M8 from Glasgow to Edinburgh) and redirect the money saved into investment in walking, cycling, public transport and enhanced rail freight facilities. It is our view that individual major road schemes should be replaced by multi-modal 'corridor packages' giving better economic and environmental results. The emphasis in transport spending has to shift from "mega-projects" providing large increases in capacity to a more cost-effective and people-friendly range of projects, integrated with increased revenue spending on enforcement of regulations and high standards of road and pavement maintenance. Will the public support the White Paper?The White Paper will undoubtedly by criticised by some motoring groups and writers (columnists from Richard Littlejohn in The Sun to Francis Wheen in The Guardian have already signalled signalled opposition to any restraint on traffic before public transport is massively improved). But opinion polls suggest a more supportive public. Recent MORI polls for the Pedestrians Association, Railtrack and others showed that:It's happening already...What the Government mustn't do is stand in the way of of policies already being promoted by Local Authorities:Edinburgh: Continuous bus priority lanes ('Greenways') led to 250,000 extra passengers on these corridors during their first six months of operation. The implementation of an eastbound ban of general traffic on Princes Street along with bus priority, cycle lanes and widened footways contributed to a 14% reduction in road accidents and improvements in air quality: "Public attitude surveys following the introduction ... showed that while there was considerable public opposition beforehand, support for the scheme rose to 60% following implementation and 65% within a year" (Local Transport Today, 2/7/98). A car-free housing development is being planned, a car club is being set up, while the City of Edinburgh Council is keen to see road pricing trialled in the city. Aberdeen: A recent Scottish Office study, part-funded by Aberdeen City Council, estimated that low-cost measures could reduce traffic levels in the city by 29% by 2011, on 1997 levels, without major new road construction. The most significant changes would come from a comprehensive programme of bus enhancement measures (15% reduction in traffic) and improved cycling measures to the centre (8% reduction in traffic). |