Reducing single-occupancy car use, getting more vehicles out of the existing road network, and minimising the need to travel are the central aims of Wales’ new national transport strategy.
The Welsh Assembly wants to reverse the trend for each person to travel ever-increasing distances with ever-greater frequency, making reducing the annual vehicle kilometres clocked up by the average person a key objective. Each person now travels an average of 10,000km a year, a 50% increase from 1980.
The policy is in stark contrast to that of England, where former transport secretary, Alistair Darling, declared that rising travel demand was the sign of a healthy economy. Demand management would play a role under the draft strategy, out to consultation until October, with workplace parking levies, more on-street charging zones, and a reduction in long-stay parking spaces. Ministers want any workplace parking levies to be accompanied by customised business travel plans, and see ‘public acceptability’ of road pricing proposals – with Cardiff considering a scheme – as vital.
But encouraging people to switch to cycling, walking, bus and rail for more journeys is also part of the strategy.
Considering the needs of cyclists and pedestrians in highway maintenance, traffic management and speed management decisions would make cycling and walking more attractive by prioritising their routes. Transport capacity would be boosted – building on the 36% increase in rail patronage from 1996 to 2004 – by introducing ‘new rail or light rail lines, busways and bus lanes’.
There would, however, also be investment in the strategic road network ‘when required’, focused on the two strategic gateways of the southeast around Cardiff and Newport, and northeast from Manchester and Liverpool.
Friends of the Earth Cymru immediately attacked plans for an additional motorway bypass at Newport in Gwent and a £50M upgrade of the A494 at Queensferry. Launching the document, Welsh transport minister, Andrew Davies, said transport provided both the ‘lifeblood of our economy’ and was ‘vital to our social justice agenda, helping people access services and opportunities’.
The minister faced embarrassment when it emerged that a 2,000-space multi-storey car park is to be built for its Crickhowell House offices, while a 100-space car park is planned for a new office on the dockside. Davies stressed that most would access the new office by a ‘much-enhanced bus and rail system to Cardiff Bay’, while the multi-storey would also serve the Millennium Centre.