TC.com is a platform for well informed news, debate – and blogs about the often scandalous state of UK transport and what will really make it better for most in practice. As from October 2009, I have decided to change the format for TC.com for a while in recognition of the impact that the Climate Change agenda is having on transport policy thinking and plans for action. The influence of prevailing beliefs about climate change has now reached new peaks. This is colourfully highlighted by a stream of pronouncements about plans to save the world from climate change – which are up for discussion and at a forthcoming UN summit in Copenhagen. Opinions about such plans vary but there is at least one thing we can all agree is true. Climates do change and we have an expanding array of mechanisms to try and measure changes in atmospheric and geological conditions, and the geography of our planet. But it seems to me that the key to current problems is a potentially critical gap between our desire to predict what will happen next – and the capacity of policy shapers to do so on the basis of sound evidence instead of sound bite summaries of complex phenomena.
As TC.com was from the start, it is also about probing well-spun vogue theories to reveal why, especially in Britain, relentless emphasis on constraining use of ‘private’ motorised road modes continues to cripple the movement of most people and goods in practice – and never does deliver most of us from the evils of congestion-induced wastes of time and money, frustration, anger and misery. TC.com looks beyond politically convenient theory and helps show why civilised efficient transport is achievable in the 21st century – and not the selfish dream we are told it is to justify spiralling transport taxes or constraining individual mobility. The primary aim here is positive. It is to air and develop practical alternatives to reliance on constraining and taxing transport more. This is for several reasons – not least of which is that despite this emphasis dominating the output of an entire generation of UK transport policy planners, it has consistently failed to reduce the vast array of problems arising from congestion, especially on roads where most movement of people and goods occurs. The prevailing view among UK policy-shapers is that the best way to cut traffic congestion is by developing ever more effective barriers to movement by motor vehicle. These barriers come in two types. The first are physical and involve reducing the road space available to move freely or park ‘legally’. The second are financial and involve increasing road use taxes through the spread of such measures as ‘Decriminalised’ parking enforcement – or developing new taxes in the form of Road Pricing or Congestion Charges and Low Emission Zones. But, hello, this emphasis hasn’t worked – and shows no signs of doing so soon. Congestion is as bad in London as it was before Congestion Charging. So, an underlying question to be repeatedly asked here is whether such measures find political favour because they are likely to solve transport problems in practice – or because they glitter like buckets of gold at the end of rainbows over cash strapped administrations. Attempts to impose these taxes in Britain are watched with great interest throughout the developed world but reliable and valid evidence that they do cut congestion problems is virtually non-existent. Instead there is a mounting pile of evidence showing that the spread of measures to constrain use of the most widely used modes and ‘encourage’ uptake of walking, cycling and public transport patronage has not only failed to achieve those goals –but actually makes congestion problems worse as well.