Agenda item

City Access

To update on the City Access programme including a detailed intelligent signals review delivery plan and to give approval to consult on demand management principles and measures.

 

PAPER AMENDED – Update on City Access Programme, including report on future transport requirements.

 

Decision on demand management principles deferred to October 2018 due to pause requested in Mayoral Transport Statement.

Decision:

The Joint Assembly considered the report which provided an update on work to explore a number of options for reducing congestion and improving air quality in and around Cambridge. Joint Assembly members were broadly supportive of the proposals set out in the report and for work proceeding on this.

Minutes:

The GCP Transport Director presented the report which provided an update on work to explore a number of options for reducing congestion and improving air quality in and around Cambridge. The Joint Assembly discussed the report and members made the following points:

·         Councillor Williams welcomed funds generated through demand management methods being used to improve public transport further by subsidising fares, routes, frequency and hours of operation, as well as being borrowed against. He emphasised the importance of the Park and Ride to the residents of the South Cambridgeshire villages that would never have a good public transport link to the city. He said that parking at the Park and Ride sites had to be free and hoped that there would be more Park and Ride sites.

·         Councillor Price welcomed the report which outlined the alternative ways of congestion charging. Councillor Price pointed out that he had originally been opposed to congestion charging as he felt that this penalised people who could not afford to live in Cambridge but worked in the city. It was highlighted that unless there was a good alternative public transport system, people would continue to use their cars and until there was such an alternative, people should not be penalised for having to use their cars to get into the city.

·         Councillor Bick expressed reservation regarding trying to reduce congestion with a pollution tax, as this benefitted those who could afford to replace their vehicles with less polluting alternatives, while disadvantaging those who could not afford to do so. Any powers to use a pollution tax should be used to target commercial vehicles and buses as this would target businesses which could choose which vehicles to deploy.

·         Councillor Topping urged that intelligent charging should not exacerbate the inequalities that existed around Cambridge, expressing concern that the proposals would inflict the most cost on those who could not afford to live in Cambridge but worked in Cambridge. It was questionable whether Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire had the critical mass needed in terms of population to make intelligent charging viable. Councillor Topping supported pollution charging which although was not a complete solution, may achieve buy-in from the public and persuade them that something needed to be done.

·         Councillor Topping was pleased that parking was not being charged for at Park and Ride sites, but acknowledged and expressed concern that this cut off an income stream.

·         Jo Sainsbury cautioned against doing too much work on physical demand management interventions as this was likely to alter traffic distribution and therefore skew public transport analysis. A clear programme of short, medium and long term studies and implementation would be welcomed in order to understand timescale, progression and impact.

·         Helen Valentine requested that the Joint Assembly be able to see the early work on equality and fairness and queried whether there would be an intelligent approach to intelligent charging.

·         Councillor Massey pointed out that the report did not discuss school traffic which accounted for 15% of peak time traffic. She suggested that private schools state in their contract with parents that children had to be picked up and dropped off at park and ride sites rather than at school, in order to reduce traffic.

·         Councillor Wotherspoon reiterated the point made by Councillor Topping that Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire did not have the critical mass to make a congestion charge viable. Attention was drawn to the minutes of the previous meeting during which the position of South Cambridgeshire District Council’s former Council against congestion charging was referred to, as was the FIA study on demand management.

·         It was pointed out that the GCP’s ‘Big Conversation’ had found that much better public transport would encourage mode shift, but improved public transport required more road space.

 

In response to the points raised by Joint Assembly members, the Transport Director clarified the following:

·         Park and Ride was part of the public transport mix. The issue of charging for parking at Park and Ride sites needed to be part of a wider conversation.

·         A real public transport alternative had to be in place before anything could be brought forward.

·         Size and scale needed to be appropriate to the area being considered.

·         The deliverability and benefit of any school traffic and transport measures, would need to be explored and considered.

 

Joint Assembly members were broadly supportive of the proposals set out in the report and were in favour of work proceeding on this.

Supporting documents: