‘We need to change the way we use our roads’
Prof Tony May
TRANSPORT expert Prof Tony May offers his views on cutting carbon emissions in York.
York’s new administration has committed to reducing carbon emissions from transport by 71 per cent by 2030.
This target first appeared in the council’s December 2022 climate strategy, but with no indication of how it might be delivered.
The council’s draft Local Transport Strategy in February 2023 accepted that a switch to electric vehicles would only achieve around a 30 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.
This led to the other targets announced recently: doubling walking and cycling; a 50 per cent increase in bus use and a 20 per cent reduction in car use, implying major changes in travel in York by 2030.
These are all challenging targets, not least since cycling has fallen by a third in the last decade.
So how can they be achieved?
We in York Civic Trust were invited by the council to offer suggestions, and we published our proposals as A Transport Strategy for York in February 2022 (available here[1]).
The obvious approaches are to make walking, cycling and public transport more attractive. Each of these needs significant improvement if more people are to be encouraged to use them rather than their cars.
The council’s Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan should set out what is needed for cyclists and pedestrians, but work on it has stalled.
The council has received £17m for its Bus Service Improvement Plan, but some of this is being used to support existing services, which despite this remain under threat.
However, no city in the world has achieved a 20 per cent reduction in car use simply by offering alternatives to the car.
In our Transport Strategy, we proposed three further approaches: reducing the need to travel, changing the way in which roads are used, and discouraging car use by making it more expensive. We also considered freight transport, which accounts for an eighth of all carbon emissions.
Reducing the need to travel can be done by providing alternatives to travel, and by encouraging shorter journeys.
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The first of these has already happened with the switch to working from home, and the council can do more to support people through improved broadband and community hubs for those who lack space to work at home.
The second involves providing facilities closer to home, so that people do not have to travel so far, and can do so on foot or by bike. The council could help by encouraging a wider range of services and activities in local centres and in all the Local Plan’s new developments.
Our road network is a major source of York’s problems. Every urban street serves two roles - for movement and as a place to live, shop and socialise.
It is the tension between these two that leads to problems of congestion, pollution and danger.
We recommended the council to develop a Road Network Management Plan, and are pleased that it is now doing so.
The plan must give more time and space for pedestrians, cyclists and buses, and at the same time facilitate access. That means removing through traffic, and the resulting measures will themselves help discourage car use.
If the approaches above are insufficient to achieve the 20 per cent reduction in car use, any shortfall will have to come from directly increasing the cost of car use.
This could be done by increasing the cost of parking or, as Nottingham has done, introducing a workplace parking levy.
The alternative to these is congestion charging, but the council recently approved a motion not to pursue this.
That decision could potentially make it impossible to achieve the full 20 per cent reduction in car use.
While charging in any form will be unpopular and potentially inequitable, it does have the important benefit of raising revenue to finance alternatives.
It was for this reason that we recommended that the council commission a review of the potential of all means of charging for transport.
In our Transport Strategy we argued that action would be needed in all of these areas: walking and cycling; public transport; reducing the need to travel; managing road use; controlling car use and managing freight.
The key challenge is to find the best balance between these approaches. We are pleased to see that the council is now committed to addressing this challenge, and to opening a debate on what might be the most effective and acceptable means of achieving its challenging targets.
Tony May is Emeritus Professor of Transport Engineering at the University of Leeds[2], and chairs York Civic Trust’s Environment Committee and Transport Advisory Group.