Archived press release

MPs blow holes in government transport policy

26 May 2002

Today’s report from the House of Commons Transport Select Committee is an “incisive, accurate and damning” criticism of Government transport policy, says Friends of the Earth.

The report exposes all the key weaknesses in the Government’s 10 year transport plan. These include (references are to paragraphs in the list of conclusions on page 53 of the report, bold type inserted by FOE):

• (a) “blue skies thinking from casual enthusiasts such as John Birt is no substitute for a considered analysis of the impacts of future policies that the Government has hitherto been reluctant to consider”
• (d) “ In refusing to set a target to reduce traffic levels or even traffic growth … the Plan does not address whether the UK has the capacity to provide for even greater car use”.
• (e) “ Having identified the key challenge as differences in costs between public and private transport, the Government has developed a Plan that enlarges these differences instead of reducing them”
  
• (f) “ The Department has paid only lip service to important indicators such as accessibility, safety and social inclusion”.
• (h) “ The Plan should not be dominated by high-cost infrastructure projects at the expense of smaller but equally effective measures”.
• (k) “ The Government ’s approach to motoring costs is incomprehensible. The failure to address falling motoring costs will make public transport a significantly less attractive option”.
• (s) “It is essential that the Government commits to fund those projects that are necessary to provide a first-class rail system, and not just those that the private sector is prepared to support”.
• (ff) “The Government is over-optimistic about how much private funding will be delivered in the Plan. Oddly it plans that the main application of private funding should be for public transport. Roads, on the other hand, continue to be overwhelmingly funded with public money. There seems to be no rationale for this”.
• (ii) “The Government must produce a set of interim targets for 2005 in order to assess progress towards the objectives in the Plan”.
• (tt) “A budget for completing the work proposed by the multi-modal studies must be set aside to ensure that the recommended balance of schemes is constructed, and that they are then implemented in an order which gives priority to starting to shift patterns of behaviour rather than promoting car use”.

Friends of the Earth Transport Campaigner Tony Bosworth said:

“The Select Committee’s extremely important and valuable report clinically exposes all the key weaknesses of Government transport policy. In demanding clear targets for road traffic reduction and in calling for the cost of public transport to fall relative to the cost of car use, the Committee has endorsed much of what Friends of the Earth has been saying for years.

The political stakes have now been raised for the Government’s review of its 10-Year Plan, due this summer. Nothing less than a full overhaul of transport policy will do. The Government must commit itself to traffic reduction targets. It must find more money for rail and other forms of public transport. It must find ways to cut the costs of using public transport. And it must address the transport needs of the socially-excluded. Let this report mark the end of fudge, mudge, muddle and delay in New Labour transport policy.”

House of Commons Transport, Local Government and the Regions “10 Year Plan for Transport” HC 558-I, published 25th May 2002

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust