Cornish Social & Economic Research Group

“People know we cannot build our way out of congestion with new roads.” (DETR, 1998).

“Since new roads can lead to more traffic, adding to the problem not reducing it, all plausible options need to be considered before a new road is built.” (DETR, 1998 cited in: House of Commons, 2003).

GENERAL ASSUMPTIONS

ii) Planning policy will reduce the need to travel
A central tenet of policy is to focus new development into existing urban areas. This approach, which means planning developments so that people can work, play and shop locally, has long been an integral component of planning policy. Superficially plausible, with people living closer to their place of work, shops and leisure facilities, the need to travel will be diminished. This is however, fundamentally flawed. Assuming that by locating employment (or other facilities), adjacent to housing developments, the number of trips will be reduced, runs counter to what happens in reality. People generally do not carry out all their activities in their local area, they move! Reducing need does not in itself reduce travel. It ignores all the factors that generate trips – the increase in two-earner households; the demands of the labour market; the growth of leisure travel; additional retail opening hours; choice of school; the development of ‘flagship’ developments which generate traffic; the ‘rationalisation’ of services leading to longer distances between homes and service provision. Planning policy also is contradictory. New developments, for example, the retail park at Hayle, Kingsley village at Fraddon, both located on the A30, generate traffic, drawing it away from existing urban centers. Flagship developments for example, the new leisure center at Pool, ostensibly for the local community, are designed to encourage people to travel.

iii) Regeneration
New roads are now supported on the grounds that they assist regeneration by improving access and opening up land for development. In reality, increasing access will simply generate additional traffic movements as people from across Cornwall will travel, whether to work, shop or visit leisure facilities . Most development sites can already be accessed by road, for example the employment land at Barncoose.

WHAT WILL BE THE IMPACT OF NEW ROAD CAPACITY?

i) Extra car trips/Demand inducement
It is now recognised that additional road space leads to additional traffic. A significant number of reports have illustrated the concept of induced traffic. The construction of a new road will initially make it easier to travel by car in the area. This short term gain in time saved will be lost as more people decide to travel along the road. “A reduction in congestion will have the potential to induce extra trips and traffic, which would not otherwise have occurred.” (Poole, 1998). Providing additional road capacity will simply encourage more people to travel by car. In essence, if people think that they will be able to travel from one place to another faster than was possible before, they will be more likely to travel.

ii) Discouraging non-car travel options
Despite reference to cycling and walking in various planning documents, new roads will encourage car use and thus discourage alternative methods of transport. Why walk or catch a bus if it’s easier to go by car?

iii) Opportunity costs
Investment in roads represents one of a number of potential uses of finite funds. Money spent on roads reduces funding for other alternative forms of transport or communication.

iv) Environment
Each new road and addition to road capacity impacts upon adjacent areas thus further degrading the environment of the area for the people who live, work and travel there. Increasing numbers are subject to the various forms of traffic related pollution, including noise and chemical. The area of land devoted to transport, particularly road transport continues to increase. This includes not just the land used for the highway itself but adjacent areas, which become part of the road ‘envelope’. Again these lead to a further diminution of the environment, reducing the quality of life for many. Significant areas in the area already suffer from noise pollution due to rising traffic levels. In terms of global warming additional carbon will be released into the atmosphere.

CoSERG has long argued for an alternative approach to transport, one which plans for reducing car traffic levels through for example:

Investment in public transport; Developments that meet local needs rather than encourage car traffic; Use ICT to reduce the need for travel.

Switching investment from road to these could make a difference!