London, Eng.--John Prescott--Britain's deputy prime
minister, who oversees the government's public transport policies--has called for a
massive program to encourage the use of buses and trains, to lower traffic congestion, and
to persuade people to leave their cars at home.
A policy-setting White Paper by the Department of the
Environment, Transport and the Regions, headed by Prescott, outlined a series of measures
to promote and increase public investment in transit, including:
an additional 1.8 billion pounds ($3 billion) over three
years to support local transport systems;
more bus lanes and improved new buses;
a comprehensive nationwide transport information service by
2000;
empowering local governments to introduce congestion
pricing and workplace parking fees;
motorway tolls, with pilot projects to assess their impact
and with the cash raised plowed back into commuter rail and urban bus systems;
supervised safe routes for children to walk or bike to
schools, to end the congestion caused by parents driving them there during peak hours;
guaranteed half-price fares for the elderly; and
establishment of a "strategic rail authority"
that will evolve a national fare structure, enforce tougher performance standards, and
ensure that railways are properly integrated with other forms of transit.
The guidelines established in the White Paper now await a
package of legislative actions in Parliament that is sure to be hotly contested by the
Conservative Party opposition. Tory spokesman Gillian Shepherd has described the
long-promised proposals as nothing more than "extra taxes for road users, more
regulation, and no improvements for the traveling public."
However, Prescott told the House of Commons, "Radical
change is necessary. This White Paper is about that radical change and how to achieve it.
No change is, frankly, not an option. The country wants a better transport system, which
does not continue to damage our health, industry and environment."
The full text of the White Paper is available on the DETR
Internet site at http://www.dft.gov.uk/itwp/.
In a related, environment-oriented move, Prescott has put
the United Kingdom government at the leading edge of a Europe-wide initiative designed to
promote the use of cleaner, greener buses and cars "to improve the quality of the air
we breathe and still maintain the accessibility of our towns and cities."
A U.K.-wide Alternative Traffic in Towns project, launched
at Chester earlier this year, now has the support of more than a dozen British cities,
including several London boroughs. Others are expected to follow suit shortly. The ALTER
project aims to get several hundred European cities to agree to:
renew their own transport as soon as is feasible on a clean
or near zero-emissions basis;
convert the portion of their fleet with extended lifetimes
to lower emissions or cleaner fuels; and
progressively extend areas of their cities to which only
traffic with clean or near zero-emission vehicles would have access.
A conference held in Florence, Italy, in October brought
together representatives of several hundred regional, provincial, and local governments
throughout Europe pledged to adopt the policy objectives outlined above. Municipalities in
the lead on this initiative include Florence; Athens, Greece; Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon,
Portugal; Oxford, England; and Stockholm, Sweden.
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