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Duncan MacKenzie: Put your best foot forward to end tyranny of car transport
WOULDN'T it be good to have a proper choice about how we get around? Very few of us want to end up like the US, where people sometimes think there's something wrong with you if you don't drive.
That's why the Campaign for Better Transport has created a car-dependency scorecard and marked each region of England on how much real choice people have in how they get about. We've taken everything from
how near people are to a post office to how many Cycling Towns there are in order to work out just how dependent each region is on the car.
Car-dependency isn't just about how good public transport is and how much it costs, although that's important. It's also about how safe and pleasant streets are to walk in and cycle along, and just how easy it is to get to places like schools, doctors' surgeries and workplaces – if all that is close, convenient and affordable, who wouldn't leave their car at home?
Well, I'm afraid Yorkshire got a D+ this year in car-dependency. It is doing well in some areas, but is letting itself down badly in others. It must work harder to be top of the class, especially since it is struggling to keep ahead of certain other parts of the country. Yorkshire has a number of strong points and a lot of potential but must follow the good examples set elsewhere if it is to succeed next year.
On the plus side, people in Yorkshire's urban areas have quiet roads to walk and cycle on. Many of the county's new buildings are built on land that has been developed in the past, so it's more likely there will already be public transport nearby. When new buildings are put on land that's never been built on before, they tend to be close together – again, making public transport more viable.
But there are some things to worry about, though. The cost of travelling by public transport is pretty high – more than 2 per journey on average, compared to less than 1.50 per journey by car. To give authorities in Yorkshire a sense of what's possible, public transport in the North-East is on average cheaper than the car.
What is more concerning is that more pedestrians and cyclists in Yorkshire are killed or seriously injured than in any other region outside London. If people have a sense that the roads are dangerous to walk and cycle on, they'll be much more likely to get into their cars, even for short trips. Each of these casualties is one too many.
But transport in Yorkshire could be better. In addition to road safety initiatives, which are really important, introducing Home Zones would also help to reduce the numbers of people knocked down on the roads. Home Zones are residential areas which use traffic-calming measures to reduce speeds and make streets safer.
Cycling Towns are an initiative from Cycling England designed to make towns better to cycle in. The towns, and York is one of them, receive funding that brings their investment in cycling up from about 1 per person per year to about 16 – on a similar scale to Dutch cities like Amsterdam. Station travel plans make train stations better connected and make it easier for people to make their whole journey in a healthy, sustainable way – by cycling, walking or using buses or trams to get to and from the station. Yorkshire only has three of them.
If public transport was made more affordable – and that's a matter not just for the operators, but also for local and national government – and car-sharing and car-pooling schemes were promoted and became more widespread, then people would find it easier to travel without their car. They would know that when they did need a car, then one would be there for them without them having to buy it and maintain it – that's
car-pooling.
So let's not have a Yorkshire where people don't use public transport because it's just too expensive, and where they don't want to walk or cycle because they're afraid the roads are too dangerous.
Let's look forward to a Yorkshire where the roads are safer, the public transport is affordable, walking is popular because it's just a pleasant way to go and cycling is the natural choice for shorter journeys.
Car-dependency is bad, but it's not inevitable. It's complex, as our scorecard shows, and we need to understand it properly before we can improve it. Yorkshire's local authorities and the Government are the ones who have made many of the decisions that contribute to Yorkshire's car dependency. So if you want it to change, take action – support an organisation like ours, visit a site like WriteToThem.com and tell your councillors and MP how you feel.
And why not walk to school, work or the shops?
Duncan MacKenzie is a campaigner with the Campaign for Better Transport
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Weather for Yorkshire
Sunday 12 February 2012
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Light rain
Temperature: 1 C to 6 C
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Sunny spells
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