APPENDIX 1
Memorandum submitted by Mr Stephen Plowden
SUMMARY
The existing distinctions between different
kinds of local transport expenditure, each with its own source
of funds, should be scrapped. Instead, each local transport authority
should have a single transport budget. This budget should be allocated
between different schemes and kinds of scheme as indicated by
benefit/cost ratios and other relevant considerations. No ways
of increasing road capacity should be considered unless it can
be shown that more capacity would still be required even if all
appropriate management measures designed to make better use of
the existing infrastructure had been put in place. Parliament
should legislate to ensure that local authorities have all the
powers they need to make better use of the existing infrastructure.
This would mean, among other things, extending their powers to
control off-street parking and giving them powers to determine
the bus services and fares in their areas. They should also be
enabled to use transport budgets to subsidise local facilities,
such as shops, post offices, recreation centres, where to do so
would reduce motorised travel or relieve social deprivation. The
Highways Agency's budget should be drastically curtailed. Most
of the money saved should be spent outside the transport sector,
but some might be transferred to local authorities' transport
budgets.
1. Local transport spending should be guided
by two principles. Each local authority should have one budget
covering all its transport responsibilities, to be allocated between
different schemes, and schemes of different types, as indicated
by their benefit/cost ratios and by other economic, social or
environmental considerations not now reflected in benefit/cost
ratios. The present arbitrary distinctions between capital and
revenue spending, small schemes and large schemes, and so on,
make it impossible to get the best value for money from a given
total expenditure. The second principle can be summarised by the
slogan "management before investment". The present problems
on the roads are not caused, as is often supposed, by insufficient
capacity, but by rules for the use of the roads that are no longer
adequate or appropriate in modern conditions. No amount of roadbuilding
could remove the need to reform these rules. To justify some proposed
increase in capacity, it would have to be shown that it would
be required even when the user rules had been reformed. The effect
of the reforms, though it would certainly be major, is difficult
to predict in detail. Usually, therefore, it will be necessary
to implement them and observe their effects before proposals for
new roads or road widening are considered or even formulated.
2. These principles are only common sense.
The second one was well stated by a House of Commons Committee
as long ago as 1973. In its report Urban Transport Planning,
the Expenditure Committee said (paragraph 27) "The arguments
used in favour of road building seem to us to be in error by presuming
that the roads we already have are being used in the most efficient
manner in the context of the total transport situation".
In paragraph 107, the Committee recommended "that, as an
urgent priority, all trunk and principal schemes of urban roadbuilding
which have not reached the exchange of contract stage should be
re-examined ab initio". The Department of Transport
paid no attention, and, shamefully, neither the Treasury nor Parliament
took the Department to task. Hinc illae lacrimae.
3. Some of the more important reforms, including
those in the three linked fields of vehicle construction and use
regulations, driver licensing and vehicle taxation, have to be
made at the national or even international level, but there is
a great deal that is best done at the local level. For that to
happen, however, central government must ensure through legislation
that local authorities have all the necessary powers, which they
do not at present. One example is that local authorities need
more powers to control off-street parking. Other examples are
mentioned below.
4. The two basic principles are mutually
reinforcing. Schemes intended to make better use of existing roads
commonly have much higher benefit/cost ratios, even when assessed
by methods which understate their benefits, than major schemes,
even when assessed in systematically flattering ways. For example,
bus priority schemes and traffic calming schemes often repay their
costs more than once within a year. At present, comparable methods
for the economic evaluation of schemes to help pedestrians and
cyclists are lacking, but given their huge potential, in terms
of health as well as of transport benefits narrowly defined, there
can be no doubt that they too deserve a high place in the allocation
of transport budgets. The more that the benefits claimed for large
schemes can be provided in alternative, cheaper ways, the weaker
the case for them.
5. Integrated local transport planning is
seriously weakened if local authorities lack powers to specify
the bus services required for their areas and to subsidise them
if necessary. Subsidies are a "second best" measure,
which would not be necessary (except perhaps in some limited circumstances
for social reasons) given an appropriate legal and fiscal framework
for the use of cars, but to refrain from subsidising public transport
in the present unreformed conditions makes even second best solutions
unattainable. There is something to be said for a national body,
such as the Traffic Commissioners, to license and certify bus
companies, so that local authorities would know that they all
had satisfactory operating standards, employment practices etc,
but powers of specifying services and fares and making contracts
with bus operators should be in local hands. Local authorities
should also be allowed to use transport budgets to subsidise local
facilities, such as post offices, shops or recreational centres,
where to do so would lead to a reduction in the number or length
of motorised journeys or would relieve social derivation.
6. The principle of management before investment
also applies to the Highways Agency's schemes. The massive investment
now proposed in trunk roads may reduce congestion in the very
short term, but, with the present unreformed user rules, it will
soon make matters worse, and if the rules were reformed it would
not be necessary. Among the reforms needed at the national level
are lower speed limits, properly enforced, and the introduction
of a simple, not revenue-neutral, system of road pricing for lorries.
Road pricing for cars on motorways would be the next thing to
be considered if lower speeds did not restrain traffic enough.
It would be very simple to operate without elaborate new technology,
but it is essential that lower speed limits on roads other than
motorways should be in force first so as to prevent diversions
from motorways to other roads. The Highways Agency's budget should
be drastically curtailed, and although most of the money saved
would probably be best spent outside the transport sector, some
might be transferred to local authorities' transport budgets.
The existence of two potential sources of transport spending in
one area, one of which can in principle be spent on any kind of
transport improvement, while the other can be spent only on roads,
and only on roads of a limited class at that, must lead to a misallocation
of resources. It also creates an artificial and pernicious pressure
for new roads among local councils and MPs. They think they are
standing up for their constituents by campaigning for the Highways
Agency to build roads in their areas, although if local authorities
were given the same amount of money to spend as they chose, they
would not spend it on roads.
19 April 2006
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