Local Agenda 21 (LA21)

13. Transport

13.1 Transport is vital to social and economic life and increasing demand for transport is closely associated with increasing affluence and leisure time. Road traffic is forecast to grow by 38% between 1996 and 2016 according to the latest government forecast, leading to more delays and pollution.

Car Dependency

13.2 Increasing affluence for many people, increasing car ownership and car use along with the spreading of suburbs has changed peoples' lifestyles. In Tameside, in 1981 52% of households had cars. Ten years later in 1991 the figure was 59%. The use of cars to take children to school is increasing, from 12% of school journeys nationally in 1975 to 23% in 1994. Bus use in Greater Manchester is falling, passenger mileage in 1994 was only half of the figure in 1970 reducing travel opportunities for those without cars.

13.3 Patterns of travel have become more complicated, for example the journey home from work might be combined with collecting children from school and visiting a hypermarket. These complicated travel patterns are not easily served by public transport running on fixed routes. When a car is available it tends to get used even for short journeys, indeed around half of car journeys are less than two kilometres long.

13.4 After years of decline, the amount of cycle travel seems to have stabilised at around 2% of the total. Walking is still in decline except in pedestrianised areas. Many short journeys made by car could be made by cycling and walking if the traveller were to make this choice. Cycling and walking have hardly any impact on the environment, but cyclists and pedestrians often feel squeezed out and threatened by other traffic and are vulnerable to injury. Cyclists and pedestrians need suitable routes and crossings of their own.

13.5Transport has an environmental impact; the greatest and growing impact is due to cars. New technologies in vehicles and roads have reduced this impact to some extent, but many older or badly maintained vehicles are still in use. Fossil fuels are subject to depletion, and their use causes pollution and leads to international conflict in the oilfield areas.

Transport Policy

13.6 Land-use and transport policies now seek to reduce the need to travel by concentrating development in existing centres. The White Paper "A New Deal for Transport - Better for Everyone" published in July 1998, proposes a system of Regional Transport Strategies, with Local Transport Plans (LTP) to be prepared by Local Authorities. The White Paper recognises the problems associated with more road building and the issues of congestion, pollution and climate change. The paper focuses on the integration of transport systems with each other and with other policy areas. Legislation and new strategies are promised for speed control, road user and parking charges and improvements for public transport, walking and cycling.

13.7 For the last few years Tameside's transportation policies have been developed as part of a transport package plan along with the Passenger Transport Authority and the nine other districts of Greater Manchester. The Government Office for the North West has informally indicated that this package work is a very good start towards the objectives of LTPs. Among other objectives the policies are intended to increase the proportion of trips to town and district centres and key employment centres that are made by public transport, by cycling and on foot and reduce the proportion made by car. While National and Local Government policies are important in determining what happens to transport, decisions about if, when and how to travel are often personal and therefore in the hands of the individual traveller.

13.8 In consultation, as part of the LA21 process, actions and targets to lead towards sustainability in different aspects of transport have been identified and are set out in the following tables.