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Focus Summer 2001 - Menu - Index - Previous
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TRANSPORT GROUP NEWS PARK
& RIDE
When the public were consulted about the construction
of Tram link, a few people did suggest that there should some
"Park and Ride" car parks provided at Tramlink stops.
The proposals were resisted by the planners. With the opening
of Tramlink, informal "Park and Ride" started. Motorists
started parking in residential streets in the vicinity of Tramlink
stations. Initially numbers were small but are now sufficiently
large that the volume of parking is considered to be a nuisance
in some roads with the result that the council have been forced
to consider formal "Park and Ride" car parks. It is
argued that "Park and Ride" is successful in many provincial
towns and cities. Examples are Bath, Cambridge, Canterbury, Ipswich,
Maidstone, Norwich, Oxford and York. In these towns, the "Park
and Ride" car parks are generally outside the continuously
built-up area and are served by dedicated "Park and Ride"
buses which operate non-stop from the car parks to the town centre.
The price charged for "Park and Ride" is generally
lower than the fares charged on local bus services in these towns
for a journey of similar length. This practice undermines local
bus services thereby encouraging greater use of the car. It should
be unacceptable in an egalitarian society because it treats bus
using town dwellers as second class citizens.
Tramlink is more expensive than local buses
in Croydon. It would not be practicable to charge "Park
and Ride" passengers less than ordinary passengers although
it would be possible to make the parking element of "Park
and Ride" free. This latter option should never be considered
by a local authority whose Unitary Development Plan requires
people to minimise car usage. Moreover, the cost of providing
car parking to satisfy potential demand is massive - Tramlink's
present capacity on the New Addington route alone is over 2,000
passengers per hour which could mean a potential demand for over
5,000 parking spaces. Providing a 250 space car park, which would
only satisfy 5% of the potential demand could cost over £lmillion
to build and would require too much land to be acceptable at
any of the Tramlink stops.
Hence, the only practical way to avoid excessive
parking in roads near Tramlink stops is to introduce parking
restrictions in those roads as long as parking controls and traffic
congestion are considered to be the only acceptable methods of
restraining car use.
THE MAYOR OF LONDON'S PLANNING STRATEGY
The Mayor of London initial consultation on
a planning strategy advocates increasing the population of Greater
London rather than continuing the policy of dispersal of population
into the Home Counties. It is suggested that development densities
should be increased where public transport accessibility is good.
It assumes that traffic congestion can be reduced by encouraging
use of alternatives to the private car. However, we consider
that this strategy is fundamentally flawed. It will aggravate
traffic congestion because it will continue to be cheaper for
the motorist to travel in the car he would otherwise leave in
the garage than to use public transport.
Chloride
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