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Mr prescott and the traffic porky pie
26 June 2002
On 6th June 2002 Friends of the Earth pointed out that while more people are using public transport now than five years ago, but road traffic levels have also risen substantially.
• Rail: number of journeys up 25% [2]
• Light rail: number of journeys up 36% [3]
• Bus: number of journeys unchanged [4]
• Roads: volume of car traffic up 7%. [5]
The Department of Transport responded to our figures by flatly denying that John Prescott had ever made such a promise! On June 9th 2002, Mr Prescott wrote an article in the Independent also denying that he had ever made the pledge.
FOE has therefore collected all the evidence for Mr Prescott's pledge – in print and sound - and published it on the Internet at: http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/transport/news/prescott/
Judge for yourselves - did he say it or didn't he?
NOTES TO EDITORS
[1] John Prescott was quoted in the Guardian on 6th June 1997
[2]
| Number of journeys | |
| 1997/98 Quarter 1 | 200 million |
| 2001/02 Quarter 3 | 250 million |
1997/98 Quarter 1 includes June 1997 when the statement was made
2001/02 Quarter 3 is the most recent data available (for October to December 2001)
Source of data: Strategic Rail Authority ‘National Rail Trends 3’
[3]
| Number of journeys | |
| 1996/97 | 859 million |
| 1997/98 | 925 million |
| 2000/01 | 1104 million |
Source of data: DTLR ‘A Bulletin of Public Transport Statistics: 2001 Edition’
[4]
| Number of journeys | |
| 1996/97 | 4,350 million |
| 1997/98 | 4,330 million |
| 1998/99 | 4,248 million |
| 1999/00 | 4,281 million |
| 2000/01 | 4,309 million |
Intervening years included to show that journey numbers have fallen and are rising again. Figures for 2002 are likely to show a further increase, maybe back to level of 1996/97, but very unlikely to be ‘many more’.
Source of data: DTLR ‘A Bulletin of Public Transport Statistics: 2001 Edition’
[5]
| Road traffic – cars (seasonally adjusted) | |
| 1997 Quarter 2 | 91.4 billion vehicle km |
| 2002 Quarter 1 | 98.0 billion vehicle km |
Source of data: DTLR ‘Traffic in Great Britain’
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jun 2008
