Transport Minister Iain Gray's statement: Scottish
Executive transport policy again neglects environment
Commenting on today's statement by Transport Minister
Iain Gray's statement in the Parliament on the 'Building Better Transport'
report, Colin Howden, TRANSform Scotland Campaign Manager, said:
"It is unfortunate that the Transport Minister Iain Gray
fails to mention the environment even once in his statement. One would
think from the Minister's statement that he had single-handedly solved
Scotland's urban air pollution and climate change problems. The Minister
says that he has "listened to business" but the simple result of this
has been a £900 million road-building programme as destructive as anything
put in place by the Tories."
TRANSform Scotland highlight the following issues regarding
Iain Gray's statement:
¥ The statement obscures the fact that the Executive's principal new expenditure
in transport over the past four years has been road-building. A road-building
programme did not feature in the manifestos of either Labour or the Liberal
Democrats for the 1999 elections - yet this is what the Scottish Executive's
highest priority for transport expenditure has been.
¥ The statement fails to mention the road traffic stabilisation target
that the Executive has set itself (to stabilise traffic levels at 2001
levels by 2021). Is the Executive then acknowledging that its road-building
programme will make this target impossible to meet?
¥ The statement fails to mention walking, cycling or local traffic management.
Walking is the second most common mode of transport in Scotland, and the
Scottish Executive has published a consultative draft walking strategy
in the last month, yet it gets not even a single mention in Gray's Parliamentary
statement.
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