PARTNERSHIP SOLUTIONS FOR INTEGRATED TRANSPORT

28 January 1999

 

Rethinking road infrastructure: Prioritisation and charging

Dr George McL Hazel

Director of City Development, The City of Edinburgh Council

 

1 The approach

Edinburgh has the fastest growth in car ownership in the UK and possibly Europe. Between 1981 and 1991 car ownership in central Edinburgh grew by 57% while over the same decade UK car ownership grew at half this rate - 29%. While the public have visual evidence of the impact of this trend in terms of traffic congestion and excess demand for car parking spaces, there is still lack of information and perception on the levels of atmospheric air pollution and to what extent it is impacting upon our health. Even less is there an awareness of the social effects of increasing car dependence and the interrelationship with the city’s economic base.

Atmospheric air pollution, increasing congestion, and the developing mobility deprivation of those without access to cars makes it imperative, and not just desirable, that policies aimed at reducing car dependency and encouraging public transport, walking and cycling are implemented as quickly as possible.

Yet rising car ownership and increasing levels of traffic are often considered a measure of economic success. We need to uncouple this link - a successful economy and a quality environment need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed, the contrary is increasingly likely to be the case, as modern service-based economies rely increasingly on quality of life factors to attract inward investment and draw in visitors and tourists. But to achieve a "win-win" position means thinking not just about transport service and infrastructure, but also about urban form, economic and fiscal frameworks, and the lifestyles that give rise to the need to travel.

At present, the upward trend in car use appears relentless - more people owning cars, making more frequent and longer journeys. To change this trend will require radical measures. Travel is in itself an unproductive activity - the first aim of a sustainable transport policy should therefore be to minimise the demand for travel without reducing the opportunities for economic, social, educational or leisure activities. The second aim should be to ensure that necessary travel takes place with minimum damage to the environment. To be achievable, measures to work towards these aims need widespread community support.

There are broadly four strategies that can be adopted, a mixture of push and pull measures, and these will be needed in combination:-

Imagination and innovation in all these are needed if we are to achieve sustainable patterns of transport and development. In this paper I deal specifically with the use of road space in terms of the physical allocation of this scarce resource between different users, and how charging for use of roadspace might affect this. might in Edinburgh we are implementing this aspect of our overall strategy.

Roadspace: a scarce resource?

As traffic demand has grown, the pressure on transport planners has generally been to increase road capacity to accommodate additional demand. Outside built-up areas this has manifested itself in extensive new road building, which in turn has generated new development pressures adding yet further to traffic growth. Within urban areas, the constraints are much greater. Some towns and cities have constructed new roads, others have maximised the traffic throughput of their existing network. Neither option has provided a long term solution to traffic pressures in any city, and congestion remains a problem virtually everywhere.

One of the reasons that congestion continues to increase is that the main alternative means of transport to the car in most cities - buses - have become increasingly disrupted by congestion, and hence become a less and less attractive alternative. Similarly, congestion and increasing traffic levels make cycling an unpleasant and dangerous activity, and affect the comfort and safety of pedestrians.

In cities in particular, the roadspace available has become more and more dominated by the car. Pavements have become narrower to accommodate extra traffic lanes, pedestrians have been given less crossing time and have to take tortuous routes to cross roads, and everyone is affected by increased pollution. This makes no sense in transport terms, and it also damaging to the economic viability of the city as it becomes more polluted and provides a reducing quality of life to its inhabitants and visitors. A rational and environmentally sustainable transport system requires a re-assessment of the way in which roadspace is used.

Reprioritisation

Cities exist in order to promote the interchange of goods, labour, ideas, culture through a vast range of activities, both formal and informal. A sustainable, prosperous city will be one that facilitates this interchange by making it easy for people to meet, by design and by chance. The informal, chance element of city life is often forgotten - yet this is probably the key to a city's success, creating the quality of life that attracts people to the city. Street cafes and benches in public squares symbolise that lifestyle.

To enable this requires careful use of city space: there is a delicate balance between space for activities - including public space for the informal aspects - and space needed to provide accessibility to those activities. Where the balance is wrong, the city's economy and environment will be damaged. Over the last forty years or so, more and more city space has been used inefficiently to try and cope with growing car use. Buildings, pedestrian and other public spaces have been replaced by car space, and low density, car based suburbs, business and retail "parks", have taken over former countryside.

Yet the trends can be reversed. This has been demonstrated in Copenhagen. Copenhagen officials have managed (by removing cars in certain areas and turning space over to walkers) to generate thriving open-air public spaces which operate from mid-March through to October. Cafes will now even provide their customers with blankets so that they can drink cappuccinos out of doors on sunny but very cold days in February. The message is that having experienced an improved urban environment, city dwellers have become so used to the ethos that every possible tactic is adopted to extend the season. Such outdoor life offers the attraction of diversity, the unusual and the unpredictable, as well as opportunity to meet people.

2 Action in Edinburgh

Over a number of years, a number of measures have been taken in Edinburgh to try and improve the allocation of roadspace between different users and between movement and environmental and interaction space. In the historic Royal Mile, pavements have been substantially widened, leaving space for cafe tables and street performers. The estimated impact of even this limited reallocation of space has been an estimated increase in spending in Edinburgh, mainly by tourists, of £26m per annum.

In Princes Street, car traffic was removed from the eastbound direction in 1996, leaving buses, cycles and for some sections taxis. This change also allowed the widening of pavements to provide some additional space for pedestrians. These limited alterations are estimated to have achieved an 18%-34% increase in spend. In the westbound direction, car traffic was limited to one lane for most of its length in 1994, with a two lane wide bus lane in the section containing the city’s busiest bus stops. Studies are being carried out to examine how car traffic can be further reduced.

In the streets of the "first New Town" parallel to Princes Street, traffic management measures have been taken to exclude through car traffic. However there is a large volume of on-street parking in this area, together with substantial delivery and loading activity. As a result, these streets remain busy and at times congested. To provide greater priority for pedestrians crossing the main streets in this area, zebra crossings have been re-introduced into the city.

Roadspace for buses - Greenways

In cities such as Edinburgh where rail or other segregated public transport infrastructure is limited, it is necessary to ensure that the roadspace available for motorised traffic is used efficiently - and this means removing buses from the general traffic congestion. This is the rationale for the Councils "Greenways" scheme, which allocates significant capacity specifically for the use of buses through extensive and well enforced bus priority on major radial routes. The first routes, on the A8 between the Maybury junction and the city centre and between the city centre and Leith came into operation in August 1997, and a second batch of three corridors came into operation last month.

Initial results from the first routes suggest significant increases in patronage, as well as improvements to journey times and reliability. The largest operator in the city reported an increase of 250,000 passengers per annum, and journey time improvements of 10% to 25%

The next steps

Jan Gehl, a Danish architect much involved in Copenhagen’s experience, was commissioned in the summer of 1997 to conduct a preliminary appraisal of the City of Edinburgh along the lines of the Copenhagen project. The resulting survey and report "Public spaces and public life, Edinburgh 1998 - First Impressions concerning Potential and Problems" recognises a limited success in some public spaces in the city, including Rose Street and parts of the Grassmarket, but noted that much of the city centre is "... urgently in need of improvement in its amenity for pedestrians." The report is particularly critical about the quality of environment in locations like Princes Street and the Castle esplanade and suggests that the recent designation of central Edinburgh as a World Heritage Site increases the importance of addressing these issues.

The Council has only taken the first steps in managing roadspace to create an environment for the 21st century. But real success requires a much wider range of measures that will reduce the underlying demand and pressure for car use.

3 Road user charging

 

 

 

Public consultation

Consultation with the public and other interest groups is highlighted by the White Paper as an important part of the development of a Local Transport Plan. Surveys in Edinburgh have shown strong support for measures that re-allocate road space, for example:

Close involvement with the public and other interest groups is essential in the development of such proposals which need to be demonstrated as being part of an integrated strategy. Road space reallocation carried out in isolation risks being perceived as "anti-car".

 

 

 

 

moving FORWARD ACTION PLAN

 

Key Initiatives

Progress

  • Greenways

 

Measures to improve bus reliability and journey times on main routes and to tame traffic in residential areas

First two corridors implemented in October 1997. Significant increases in bus patronage and reductions in journey times have been achieved. Three further routes opened October 1998

  • Busway (CERT)

 

A segregated route exclusively for buses (probably guided busway) linking the city centre with new business and retail area at the western edge of the city and the airport

PFI project, topped up with successful challenge fund bid to Scottish Office. Parliamentary procedures complete, tendering under way, construction anticipated to start early 1999

  • Park & Ride

 

Car parks in strategic positions throughout the city with express transport links to Edinburgh city centre

First two sites for implementation linked to CERT PFI project.

  • Pedestrian Areas

 

Remove through traffic from the Princes Street and George Street areas

 

 

 

Improve pedestrian environment in the Royal Mile through wider pavements and better public space

Through general traffic removed from George St and from Princes Street (eastbound), with significant improvement to accidents and environment. Statutory procedures started to remove westbound general traffic.

Phase 1 completed 1996; resulting in increased business turnover in Royal Mile shops and additional jobs. Complete closure of one section during Edinburgh Festival.

  • Cycle network

 

City wide network of routes focusing on provision of lanes on major roads and on routes through traffic calmed streets

Over £300,000 spent in 1996/97 on network development, including installation of 40 more advanced cycle stop lines at junctions.

  • Rail Services

 

Build a new station at Edinburgh Park, and pursue the reopening of the South Suburban railway for passengers

Station linked to CERT project and funding from developers.

 

 

4 Conclusion

Re-allocation of roadspace is not just an issue of efficient management of the transport system, it also supports wider policies for economic success, environmental improvement and conservation, health and social policy. Inevitably, car drivers will feel themselves to be the victims in measures that reduce the capacity available for cars and transfer it to public transport or pedestrians, and such policies can give rise to heated debate. However, this can be addressed by ensuring that the wider benefits to the community as a whole are stressed - and that the measures are part of a comprehensive strategy that is acceptable to and understood by the public.

Most importantly, understanding of the implications of a continuation of present trends reinforces acceptance that "the status quo is not an option", and that the unconstrained use of cars in our cities - and most of all in city centres - is no longer socially acceptable. Any use is a privilege to be used carefully, rather than a right.

 

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