2 Benefits and impacts
Regeneration
5. Without sufficient crossings, rivers separate
workers from jobs and consumers from retailers. According to the
London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), businesses have
rejected opportunities to operate in such areas. New river crossings
can provide immediate benefits to businesses. The LCCI said that
by linking communities on either side of rivers, the catchment
area for consumers and potential employees is enlarged, which
enables firms to take advantage of economies of scale. Productivity
rises as vehicle-maintenance costs, fuel costs and transport time
for moving goods are lowered.[1]
Paul Woods, Chief Finance Officer, North East Combined Authority,
said that the new Tyne Tunnel had attracted industry to the local
area: "there is significant industry both north and south
of the crossing; you have Nissan and a range of offshore employment
opportunities. Having that free flow of access across is very
important for economic regeneration."[2]
A study by the Centre for Urban and Regeneration Studies at Newcastle
University on the economic impact of the new Tyne Tunnel reached
similar conclusions to those of the LCCI on the benefits of new
river crossings. Those included:
· financial benefits resulting from the
opening of the new Tyne Crossing reported by just over half of
businesses interviewed;
· positive impacts resulting from reduced
travel to work times, including higher productivity;
· the potential for businesses to recruit
from a wider catchment area. That increased the potential to raise
the quality of staff;
· reductions in vehicle-operating costs
for over two thirds of applicable businesses; and
· no unintended negative consequences from
reduced Tyne Tunnel crossing times.[3]
6. Supporters of new river crossings also believed
that greater connectivity provided benefits beyond helping business,
such as aiding the development of new housing and wider regeneration
in local communities. The LCCI said that as demand for commercial
space increases, land value rises, which leads to the economic
conditions where developers invest in building homes.[4]
So far there is only anecdotal evidence to support that view.
John Elliott, an independent transport consultant, stated "that
there is very little hard quantitative evidence that Strategic
Roads or indeed River Crossings help genuine regeneration or create
long term jobs rather than just extra traffic."[5]
Stephen Joseph, Chief Executive, Campaign for Better Transport,
told us that "Some of the claims for jobs and regeneration
melt away when investigated closely and queried."[6]
John Hayes MP, Minister of State, Department for Transport (DfT),
told us that there was evidence that new river crossings spur
regeneration and that the DfT would provide it to the Committee:
"I will ask my Department to put together pieces of data
which show the very connection you ask for. It seems to me that
if I am right, and we need to contextualise these schemes against
the wider economic background, we need to provide the data to
support that".[7]
7. It is clear
that new river crossings can have genuine financial benefits for
local businesses in terms of lower vehicle costs, time efficiencies
and greater access to labour and consumers. It is less clear that
those benefits extend to local people who should benefit from
the development of new housing and the regeneration of their communities.
The Minister has promised to send the Committee research that
demonstrates the link between enhanced cross-river connectivity
and urban regeneration. That research should be provided with
the Government's response to this report. The Department must
then use that research as a foundation for further guidance, aimed
at transport planners, that demonstrates how river crossings should
be exploited to deliver opportunities for new housing and local
regeneration.
Environmental impacts
8. The increased connectivity provided by river crossings
can lead to more local traffic. If the resulting vehicle emissions
reduce air quality, the case for river crossings as a means of
regenerating local areas is undermined. Reducing congestion and
improving air quality are important objectives, and local concerns
about those issues must be taken seriously. Nevertheless, freezing
the construction of new crossings is not the answer to achieving
those objectives, particularly in places that are already congested.
In areas with growing populations, such as east London and the
wider Thames Gateway, those problems will only get worse.
9. New river crossings, especially if they are planned
with long-term capacity requirements in mind and are well integrated
with the surrounding road network, speed up traffic flows. That
means motor vehicles will spend less time sitting idly and producing
harmful emissions. Adopting more intelligent transport methods
to operate crossings can further mitigate the impacts of new river
crossings. Sharon Kindleysides, Chairman, ITS-UK, told us that
transport authorities can introduce restrictions on HGVs or high-emission
vehicles at certain points in the day or manage their access to
crossings so that they are not stationary for long periods of
time with their engines running. Sharon Kindleysides provided
the Committee with an example that could be applied to river crossings:
This is where intelligent transportation systems
can come into their own. I live in Ely, where at the moment they
are contemplating a bypass, which will cost £X million [sic].
The solution that I am proposing is that you could use ITS to
hold lorries back and meter them through a controlled crossing.
You could hold them somewhere where they were not sitting at a
road junction with their engines running. If you knew that you
had time to get five lorries through, you would let five lorries
through on a red phase of the traffic lights and then hold them
back, so that the engines were not running.[8]
10. Michele Dix, Managing Director, Planning, Transport
for London (TfL), described how plans for new river crossings
can be integrated with environmental policy that might provide
lessons for other river-crossing schemes outside London.[9]
TfL has published a Transport Emissions Roadmap. The Roadmap sets
out a number of intelligent ways to improve air quality in emission
hotspots. Those include a more sophisticated use of London's traffic
light system to reduce delays, restricting the use of HGVs at
certain times and using differential charging on river crossings
to encourage the uptake of lower emitting vehicles and to deter
the use of higher polluting vehicles.[10]
11. It is clear
to us that new river crossings have both benefits and impacts
on communities located nearby. Local concerns on the environmental
impact of new crossings must be taken seriously. We welcome Transport
for London's Transport Emissions Roadmap and hope measures are
taken forward to mitigate the impacts of any new river crossings
in London. When consulting on new river crossings the Department
must use the process to identify how technology and design can
be used as effective tools for mitigating the impact of new road
capacity on air quality.
Congestion and future-proofing
12. New river crossings add capacity to the road
network. They make the transport network more resilient against
delays to journeys caused by congestion. Reducing delays was the
main reason for building the second Tyne Tunnel.[11]
The first Tyne Tunnel, completed in 1967, was designed to provide
a combined two-way capacity of 25,000 vehicles per day, but this
has since risen to 34,000 vehicles per day. That congestion hindered
economic development as it reduced the attractiveness of the A19
corridor as a new business location.[12]
Table 1: Annual traffic flow on the Tyne
Tunnels since 2007[13]
| Total Traffic
|
| 2007 | 12,144,861
|
| 2008 | 11,899,016
|
| 2009 | 11,714,713
|
| 2010 | 11,617,448
|
| 2011 | 11,996,079
|
| 2012 | 14,315,069
|
| 2013 | 15,056,791
|
| 2014 | 16,419,059
|
13. The experience of the Tyne Tunnels demonstrated
that increased capacity provided by a new river crossing can be
short-lived. Table 1 shows that the new tunnel led to an immediate
step change in traffic flow when it opened in 2011. Traffic rose
in line with planners' estimations;[14]
however, Paul Woods, Chief Finance Officer, North East Combined
Authority (NECA), explained that an opportunity was missed to
provide long-term resilience against congestion.[15]
The local transport authority was required to build a two-lane
tunnel, whereas a four-lane tunnel would have been better value
for money, more sustainable and more resilient in the long term.
However, the toll income required to pay for a four-lane tunnel
would have been too high. "We had to go for an option that
was satisfactory for a 10 to 15-year period, but I do not think
it was appropriate in the long term."[16]
It is much more expensive to increase the capacity of major bridges
or tunnels than it is for conventional roads. Mike Llywelyn-Jones,
Association of Consultancy and Engineering, said that difference
justified a policy of planning river crossings for the capacity
requirements of a much longer period of time, such as 30 years.
That was "because the cost of being wrong, as it is sometimes
described, is very large indeed."[17]
Such short-term planning is far from unusual. Tim Healey, Association
for Consultancy and Engineering, said:
It is a very common problem. It has been happening
for years. If you look at the major river crossings in this country—the
Mersey, the Severn, the Forth and the Dartford crossings—all
of them have been duplicated. When they were first constructed,
there was not future-proofing, or the means of catering for capacity
20 years or so into the future.[18]
Short-term planning is exacerbated by current
cost-benefit analysis methods. We were consistently told that
cost-benefit analyses are poor at predicting the impact of a new
river crossing. The Institute of Engineering and Technology told
us that the predicted usage of a new river crossing is "likely
to be underestimated."[19]
The DfT said that the current approach to cost-benefit analysis
was generally based on assuming that the introduction of a new
river crossing "does not significantly change the system
within which it is being assessed." The DfT went on to say
that it was undertaking a survey of the latest empirical evidence
for the growth impacts of significant infrastructure schemes and
the results are due to be published later this year.[20]
14. Infrastructure planners must be mindful of the
impact of new automotive technology when considering the requirements
for new river crossings. In paragraph 9 we discussed the role
such technologies could have in addressing environmental concerns.
In our Motoring of the future report we found that such
technologies can reduce congestion and "could free up millions
of pounds from the cost of road expansion and river crossings".[21]
Driverless vehicles with technology that enables them to communicate
with one another have the potential to significantly change driving
behaviour. Vehicle platooning is just one possibility that could
achieve that but it would require architects and infrastructure
planners to transform how river crossings are designed.[22]
15. River crossings
have all too often been planned with a design life that was too
short. That has resulted in the costly duplication of existing
crossings, often decades after the original crossing has exceeded
capacity. That provides a limitation on both the local and national
economy and such short-termism brings an opportunity cost to the
taxpayer. The Department must avoid that
in the future by planning for longer-term capacity requirements.
Such planning should also provide future-proofing for the requirements
of 21st century infrastructure, including the potential for driverless
vehicles that could revolutionise driving behaviour. Short-term
planning has been exacerbated by cost-benefit analyses that underestimate
the usage of new crossings. The Government's current survey of
cost-benefit analysis methods must include an examination of ways
to improve traffic-modelling forecasts to ensure that the proposed
design life of new crossings accurately reflect their usage by
motorists.
1 London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SRC0024)
para 21-22 Back
2
Q124 Back
3
The Centre for Urban and Regeneration Studies The Tyne Tunnel Crossings: an economic impact assessment Back
4
London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SRC0024) para 22 Back
5
John Elliott, (SRC0013) para 3.16 Back
6
Q104 Back
7
Q186 Back
8
Q150 Back
9
Q12 Back
10
Transport for London, Transport Emissions Roadmap, September 2014,
para 5.16-5.18 Back
11
North East Combined Authority (SRC0036) para 3.4 Back
12
North East Combined Authority (SRC0036) para 2.1 Back
13
North East Combined Authority (SRC0036) para 2.3 Back
14
Q126 Back
15
Q110 Back
16
Q110 Back
17
Q159 Back
18
Q148 Back
19
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (SRC0032) para 4.1 Back
20
Department for Transport (SRC0009) para 4.3 Back
21
Transport Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2014-15, Motoring of the future,
HC 429, para 78 Back
22
Vehicle platooning is is a method of increasing the capacity of
roads by decreasing the distances between vehicles. Driverless
vehicles with the capability to accelerate or brake simultaneously
would enable that ability. Back
|
