CORE Transport Activists Roundtable 25 April 2007

Submissions to the Draft Climate Change Bill should be sent in by 12 June 2007. The Bill seeks to achieve cuts in carbon dioxide sufficient to limit climate change to no more than +2 degrees centigrade and to ensure that governments stick to the plan.

A 60% cut by 2030 is not going to be enough and it is felt the Bill should be more ambitious. Cuts will have 5 yearly budgets but there could be problems if there is a change of government and the previous administration had failed to achieve their budget objectives.

It is thought that an independent study should decide what the target reductions should be for each period. The Bill targets are —3% year on year and the Bill is supported by 200 Labour MPs.

This target is considered to be inadequate, especially as it does not include international aviation and shipping. However, the Bill says there needs to be an international accounting system to include aviation and shipping.

Submissions should be sent to DEFRA and should focus on raising target reductions and the inclusion of aviation and shipping.

Dr Jillian Anable is to be asked to develop her paper on Transport and Climate Change but will need funding to do this.

ROAD PRICING: The RAC has suggested a voluntary pilot scheme, similar to the Norwich Union Pay As You Go insurance scheme. This could be set up in such a way that volunteers would get fuel duty rebates to compensate for road charges.

It has been suggested that in-car speed limiters could be more acceptable to public opinion than road charging.


Transport Activists Group meeting with Sir Rod Eddington 11 April 2007

There were seven TAR members in attendance and Sir Rod was accompanied by four DfT officials from his team. r

The agenda items we wished to discuss were:—
1) Climate change
2) Monetising environmental impacts
3) Land use planning
4) Small schemes
5) Key inter urban corridors - road and rail
6) International Gateways and tourism.
7) Major infrastructure projects and Planning

Much of the time was spent discussing planning issues and the difficulties of monetising environmental and other impacts such as landscapes. We expressed concern for the proposed “Presumption in favour” for major projects.

We made the point that the claimed economic benefits for international gateways had not taken account of the negative impacts of tourism.

On rail, Sir Rod acknowledged the importance of rail to the economies of major cities, particularly London, but he seemed less enthusiastic about rail’s role for long distance inter-city routes where there were existing road and air links. He agreed it was unclear what effect road charging would have on rail demand.

We agreed that Maglev should not be regarded as a practical inter-city mode as it lacked the ability to connect into existing rail networks whereas high speed rail routes could do so.

We also made the point that high-speed rail had achieved significant modal switch from air, with 71% market share between London and Paris for example, and could reduce the need for short haul flights.

Sir Rod said that when he referred to high-speed rail he included Maglev. He also said that, although he came from an aviation background, he had tried to be modally agnostic and he was quite happy for rail to take market share from air. It was clear that he regarded rail costs as the chief barrier to investment, saying that “you could never reopen closed rail routes for example

We challenged this view, mentioning the likely reopening of the East—West route between Oxford and Milton Keynes and the obstacle to further progress to the East with the approval for a boating lake across the track bed.

We mentioned that the primary objective of a new North—South high-speed route was to create more capacity on the existing network for regional passenger services and freight, which we did not think he had given sufficient attention. He took exception to this, pointing out the number of rail served ports etc they had visited.

Sir Rod did concede that, compared to roads, rail had a number of benefits including environmental, safety and land use. This was considered to have been a useful meeting and his team seemed interested to hear our comments.


Core transport activists roundtable 7 March 2007

ROAD CHARGING: There is still no clear plan as to how road charging would be implemented on a national basis or when. Chris Grayling has said the Conservatives would scrap plans for a national scheme.

Revenue neutrality could be achieved by paying back revenue by reducing other taxes. Polls have shown that if revenue from road charging is used for public transport improvements, a majority are in favour of it.

It has been suggested that the best way to put the case for road charging is to demonstrate what would be likely to happen without it. Work place parking charges, as proposed in Nottingham, could be an alternative to road charging along with other measures like traffic calming.

CLIMATE CHANGE: A paper by Dr Gillian Anable deals with the Government’s defeatist attitude to dealing with transport’s contribution to climate change and its misguided faith in technological solutions that will remove the need for behavioural change which climate experts say will be required if carbon dioxide reduction targets are to be met.

There will be a Sustainable Communities Bill rally on Monday 26 March 2007 at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Concerns include closures of Post Offices and local shops.

Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander is holding a number of rail summits that are designed to focus on the rail White Paper.

The DfT is to be reorganised thus:— City and Regional Networks (including road charging), Rail and National Networks, International Networks and Environment, Safety and Logistics and Corporate Resources.


Regional transport activists roundtable 20 February 2007

Road User Charging: It has been noted that several proposals for road charging schemes are being promoted to fund road building projects. There seems to be little evidence of road charging being used to fund public transport schemes except in Manchester, Nottingham and the West Midlands.

There is a consensus that public transport improvements should proceed ahead of, or simultaneously with introduction of road charging and that revenue from charges should be used to fund public transport. Opposition to road charging is largely based on fear of surveillance but the mobile phone already identifies people’s movements.

The Highways Agency appear to be sympathetic to introduction of road charging.

Rail Franchising: DfT Rail proposals for the new East Midlands franchise services are giving cause for concern. Splitting and joining Nottingham-Corby trains at Kettering will reduce capacity and lengthen journey times for London to Nottingham passengers. Market Harborough would see its train service cut by 50%. Through journeys between the East & West Midlands will be made more difficult by the need to change trains.

84 Tonne Lorries: The DfT is currently studying proposals for 60/84 tonne lorries but an Early Day Motion (EDM73O) has been lodged by Kelvin Hopkins

Buses White Paper: There is a lack of reference to Bus Users UK views or involvement with the consultation. There is still little prospect of bus-rail integration except in conurbations where some form of bus regulation might be re-introduced.

The use of hard shoulders on the M42 is to be introduced but will coincide with speed reductions.

Road Schemes: The M6 widening has been costed at £29billion for about 51 miles of road. This equates to about £28.5million per lane mile. The scheme to dual the A3 at Hindhead is estimated to cost £371million for little more than four miles of road (1.2 miles in tunnel).