More or less traffic in towns?

Abstract

This paper reviews some of the key assumptions and analyses of Traffic in Towns (1963), and finds significant new dimensions to the problems. In particular, towns have changed substantially as a result of the motor vehicle, opposition has undermined road programmes, and threatening new dimensions have been added to the 1963 diagnosis of environmental issues. Though there have been numerous localised environmental improvements, there has also been a steady erosion of environmental standards on many roads and streets. Restraints on the use of cars have been increasingly applied, and road pricing is now available to local authorities. Road user pricing will not, however, solve all the problems. Moreover, willingness to apply restraints on private vehicle use is likely to be limited to travel markets for which public transport can provide a reasonable alternative to the car. Trains, buses and trams can deliver such alternatives only for long-distance travel and for trips to town centres and other major trip attractors. They could do this much better than is the case today, and therefore further traffic reductions are possible. However, for the bulk of the traffic on the UK's roads, origins and destinations are dispersed, and therefore public transport and rail freight are not good alternatives to the motor vehicle. New forms of transport, capable of outperforming the fast vehicle on the fast road, are therefore needed, and two of particular interest are at advanced stages of development. The major choice to be faced today is concerned with the dispersed (intra-suburban) travel markets. It lies between, on the one hand, improving the road network to cater for the demands for which public transport as we know it is not a realistic alternative and, on the other hand, developing new forms of public and freight transport.