In theory, policy is shaped in modern democracies by a combination of what government experts and the public think are the best ways to tackle problems. In Britain great emphasis is placed on consultation procedures as means of demonstrating that the public always has a fair say in what government or their sub-contracted consultants propose and decide to do. In practice things don’t really work like that.
UK consultation procedures are rarely more than a well managed way for politicians to justify implementation of measures regardless of what the majority of people who will be affected by them actually think.
A prime example of how this works in practice is the way ‘consultation’ over the introduction of bus lanes is conducted throughout the UK. Almost invariably a bus priority lane will only be proposed on a two carriageway section of public highway that carries a high volume of traffic – and such proposals are often part of a larger scheme that continues along a major route used for both localised and through trips. However, the majority of people using a section of highway that is due to have its capacity to accommodate general traffic halved will not be consulted at all. The only people consulted are the handful of residents who live by the road in question. The thousands who pass through going about their lawful business have no say whatsoever in the prospect of being prohibited to drive their personally funded vehicles on half of the public highway they have already paid for – and enforced with automated penalty charges and fines.
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News and Internet Commentators…
The way problems are perceived by politicians and the public has a fundamental impact on the choices made between options to solve them. But a key influence on the way transport problems are seen is the way they are presented by the media and especially in ‘news’ stories which are generally expected to be a mixture of facts and peoples’ reactions to events. And, to a lesser but increasing extent, views of transport problems and solutions are developed by web based discussion and commentary.
In practice, each publisher of ‘news’ has a view of the world that will differ from others and those differences will lead to correspondingly diverse and biased reports.
For example: David Begg’s organ The Transport Times, invariably presents pollution problems associated with cars with an assumption that the core problem is that too many people use cars. On the other hand, Autocar magazine is far more likely to report on car manufactures successes in reducing vehicle emissions as the key to solving pollution problems…