Press Notices
23 May 2007
Local Transport Bill: "major opportunity to tackle congestion"
The inclusion of measures to improve bus services, to review local transport responsibilities and to introduce local congestion charging schemes in the Local Transport Bill is a major opportunity which must not be missed, the Government's key transport advisory body said today.
The Commission for Integrated Transport, which has in recent years published reports proposing reform to bus provision and transport governance and advocating road pricing, said the time was now right to move forward with these packages of measures to tackle urban congestion.
"Now is the time to press ahead with these much-needed measures to manage our roads and free up our cities from congestion," said Commission Vice Chair David Leeder.
"This Bill will provide local authorities with the powers to make car and bus journeys faster and more reliable: we need to get on and do it. It will allow transport authorities in metropolitan areas to have more coherent powers over both roads and public transport, to make the two work better together. We believe strong partnership working between authorities and bus companies will improve bus journey times and reliability. And it would allow the introduction of congestion charging schemes.
"There have been many myths in the protests about congestion charging, but the fact remains - no-one has come up with any effective alternative. A well thought-through scheme of the kind we recommend would have a significant impact on congestion for a much smaller reduction in actual traffic and the Bill would enable schemes to have common elements so that drivers could use them in different towns.
"We strongly believe that road pricing is a measure whose time has come and we are urging the local authorities not to hesitate now the means of properly managing our road and public transport network is in front of Parliament," Mr Leeder said.
The Local Transport Bill is available, together with a Press Release and Parliamentary Written Statement from Douglas Alexander, at: www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/regional/localtransportbill/.
Notes for editors:
- The Commission for Integrated Transport was set up by Government to provide it with independent advice on strategic transport policy issues.
- CfIT has published work on public subsidy in the bus industry, available at cfit.independent.gov.uk/pubs/2002/psbi/index.htm, and on improving local bus services, available at cfit.independent.gov.uk/pubs/2004/busindustry/index.htm.
- CfIT also published a report on improving the governance of transport in the UK's city regions in March this year, at cfit.independent.gov.uk/pubs/2007/moving/index.htm.
- CfIT recommended Government introduce national road pricing in its report, Paying for Road Use, 2002. Its latest report on road pricing was a world review published in December 2006 which is available at cfit.independent.gov.uk/pubs/2006/wrrp/index.htm.
- For more information call Luke Blair on 07779 023188.
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