For most people, most of the time, transport is only a means to an end. It provides access to everything from goods and services to our jobs and social lives. The aim of transport policy in a good society should be improving access in a way that enhances the quality of life of all and ensures good environmental stewardship.
Labour’s ten-year transport plan for England, published in summer 2000 and derailed that autumn by the fuel tax protests and Hatfield train crash, falls short of such an ideal. It is mainly a spending plan on roads and railways, and even in those terms the plan is regressive and relatively modest. It returns annual spending on transport, as a proportion of national wealth, to the level of the early 1990s.
Most of the benefits of the transport plan go to people on middle and higher incomes because they make more journeys by car and train. Poorer people tend to make fewer journeys, more often on foot and by bus. According to the government’s own analysis, nearly 40 percent of the benefits of the public spending in the ten-year transport plan go to the richest twenty percent of households. By contrast, little over ten percent go to the poorest fifth of households. The richest regions also benefit more than poorest regions.
The ten-year transport plan lacks an effective strategy for reducing the demand for transport as well as improving the supply. The fundamental challenge for progressive transport policy is how to reconcile freedom of choice with the common good. Left to their own devices, the transport choices of individuals and organisations do not necessarily add up to a common good and may ultimately be self-defeating.
For the majority of people, the car has brought great benefits in terms of wider horizons and new opportunities. The price has been congestion, pollution, social exclusion and erosion of the quality of life by traffic. Life has become more difficult for people on low incomes without cars as local shops, services and bus services decline, while fares rise. Streets have become more hostile environments for children, the elderly, pedestrians and cyclists.
The review of the ten-year transport plan this year provides the opportunity for a change of direction. Transport cannot expect a greater share of the Treasury cake if the government is to fulfil its commitments to spend more on health, education and tackling child poverty. Instead road user charges could provide a new source of funding and help to curb traffic growth.
Following the new M6 toll road and congestion charging in central London, the next steps could be tolls on widened sections of existing motorways, while other cities could follow London’s example.
Transport spending should be rebalanced towards the poorer regions and local transport, especially bus services and liveable streets. There should be progress towards a normal maximum speed limit of 20mph in residential areas, making streets safer for children, cyclists and pedestrians, perhaps balanced by a maximum 80mph speed limit on motorways. Bus services should be re-regulated outside London, initially in trial areas.Regional authorities accountable to regional assemblies should be created with responsibility for roads and public transport integrated with land use planning, along the lines of the Greater London Authority.
Planning policy should be used to require compact developments, with high-density housing mixed with public spaces, shops, schools, services and employment so that people can meet their needs closer to home.
Transport has mainly been a tale of woe for the government but there is one big exception: Ken Livingstone’s London, where bus fares have been kept affordable, bus services have been improved and congestion charging introduced in spite of scepticism and fierce opposition. London, the last bastion of integrated transport, now points the way forward for the rest of the country. No wonder Ken is Labour’s candidate for re-election.