大象传媒

Firstly, let鈥檚 dispel some of the common misconceptions relating to road transport:

1. 鈥淩oad transport is responsible for 25% of the UK鈥檚 CO2 emissions鈥�:

MISLEADING: Road transport is responsible for between 20% and 25% of the UK鈥檚 Man-made CO2 emissions. However, natural sources account for 96.5% of global emissions. Therefore road transport emissions represent less than 1% (actually about 0.7% or 7/1000ths) of global CO2 emissions. Furthermore, CO2 is an essential trace gas for life on this planet and is not a pollutant. By far the most potent global warming gas is water vapour.

The Taxpayers鈥� Alliance has already demonstrated (using figures from the Government's own Stern Report on the impact of transport on Climate Change) that the taxation of road transport already covers the environmental costs associated with it several times over.

"The journeys that one ought to prioritise are the ones with the greatest economic impact. These are seldom those made using public road transport."

Brian Gregory, Association of British Drivers

2. 鈥淐ongestion is avoidable by traffic management鈥�:

UNTRUE: At any time that vehicle numbers outstrip the available road space, congestion will result. This been true in our towns and cities since wheeled travel was first invented. There is no form of politically-acceptable traffic management (i.e. not entailing Socialist-style, intrusive regulation of personal mobility) that can change this.

3. 鈥淩oad Capacity will never be enough: We can't build our way out of congestion鈥�:

UNTRUE: For many decades now here in the UK, there has chronic under-investment in road (and indeed all modes of) transport; thereby condemning the available road-space to lag dramatically behind the pace of traffic growth.

We spend less of GDP per capita and therefore have less km of road per square mile of usable land, than almost all of our main European partners (who are also, it must be realised, our economic competitors). We have never made any genuine attempt to 鈥渂uild our way out of congestion鈥�.

4. 鈥淧ublic transport, good; Private transport, bad鈥�:

HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE: In the context of road transport, prioritising road users' journeys to affect congestion has been proposed and indeed to some extent enacted for some years now.

Why should public transport users be prioritised over private car users; for many of whom there is simply no time, or cost-effective alternative to private car use?

From a purely economic perspective, for any form of transport to assist in making the economy function optimally, its primary objective must be to move people and goods from origin to destination as quickly as possible; consistent with maintaining acceptable safety levels.

However; the journeys that one ought to prioritise are the ones with the greatest economic impact. These are seldom those made using public road transport.

Most surveys of public road transport highlight that its users are predominantly amongst the less economically-active groups in society: the elderly and retired, the unemployed and those undergoing part or full-time education.

Such users are actually being given priority over more economically-active members of society (private car and goods vehicle drivers) by supposedly "egalitarian" transport policies like bus-lanes, bus-prioritised traffic light systems etc.

Adding insult to injury are so-called traffic calming schemes; generally introduced to discourage so-called 鈥渞at-running鈥�.

Is it really that surprising, that when unnecessary pinch-points, adverse traffic-light phasing systems, carriageway narrowing/ subtractions etc occur, that drivers seek alternative, potentially quicker alternative routes?

Isn't that what any rational person would do, faced with an avoidable delay?

If arterial routes had not been artificially obstructed in the first place, such diversion onto alternative routes would have been unnecessary and therefore much less likely to occur.

Policies such as these are not in the least egalitarian: if they were, they would benefit all road users equally. Worse than that, they are actually economically-damaging, as they subtract road space from those vehicles which ought arguably on economic grounds to be of higher priority than, or at the very least equal priority to, public transport.

This increases journey times for the vast majority of road users, while reducing them for only a tiny minority of generally less economically-active people. Consequently, the efficiency of the whole transport system - and hence the whole economy - suffers.

The ABD is NOT proposing that private road transport be prioritised over public; merely that the two be afforded equal priority.

Nor is the ABD demanding the abandonment of bus and cycle-lane programmes; merely that these are provided in addition to existing road space; instead of being subtracted from it.

Only a lunatic (or someone with a vested interest in promoting public transport at the expense of other transport modes) could promote the current 鈥渂eggar-my-neighbour鈥� policies as "rational" or fair.

So of what is the ABD in favour?

On a national scale, the ABD would propose that an equitable proportion (say, 50%) of the fifty billion pounds per annum that the government raises from road users being reinvested in transport; with a guaranteed proportion of that (again say 50% per annum) to be spent specifically on maintaining, improving and expanding our arterial road network.

Currently, significantly less than this (typically only c.拢7-8Bn) is invested in transport; and only a paltry c.拢2Bn per annum in the arterial motorway and A-road network. This compares very unfavourably with, for example, the USA where c.拢50Bn per annum is raised in road user taxes and 拢49Bn of it goes back into investments in their road network.

This approach would silence the spurious arguments being advanced to promote road charging, by providing adequate high quality motorway/ dual carriageway road capacity; bypassing congestion hotspots, increasing average traffic speeds; while contemporaneously reducing accidents and cutting congestion, unnecessary transport emissions & traffic delays; thereby boosting the efficiency of the whole economy.

More specifically here in the North-East of England, we have a reasonable proportion of high-quality North-South roads helping to offset congestion and keep traffic flows moving; but there are exceptions.

As with most of the UK, East-West progress is more difficult due to a relative scarcity of high quality routes.

Likewise, the A1 North of Tyneside is a dreadfully antiquated, death-trap road that desperately needs upgrading to triple (or at the very least dual) lane motorway over its entire length to Edinburgh.

Perhaps the most congested road in the region is the A1 Western bypass in the Newcastle area; which was inadvisably built so that direct egress from, and access to, the Metro Centre and other retail parks was provided at close proximity along a significant part of its length.

In the particular case of the Metro Centre, this ought to be re-engineered; so that spur-roads from well North and South of it permit access to and egress from it; without introducing large volumes of slow-moving traffic from its vicinity joining the already heavily-trafficked A1 during rush-hour periods.