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Is Transport 2000 a threat to road haulage?

9th February 1973
Page 23
Page 23, 9th February 1973 — Is Transport 2000 a threat to road haulage?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

by John Darker • The launching of a new transport pressure group — "Transport 2000" — on Tuesday poses intriguing questions for road transport. Its prime instigator is the National Union of Railwaymen, which provides its secretary /treasurer in the person of Mr Sidney Weighell, assistant general secretary of the union and an influential member of the TUC transport committee. But its allies include such powerful environmental interests as the Civic Society, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Friends of the Earth, the SOS Campaign and the Scottish Association for Public Transport.

The only other trade union to be publicly associated with Transport 2000 is the Transport Salaried Staff Association.

The pressure group has been set up because these organizations feel that Britain is in the grip of a transport crisis and that a national transport policy is needed to rectify the situation.

Mr Eric Robinson, who chaired a press conference and is a member of the Liberal Party's environmental panel, stressed that "at the heart of the transport crisis is the question of social equity.

"Government spending on transport must benefit the majority, not favoured minorities," added Mr Robinson.

Transport 2000 believes that the same form of accounting should be used for all forms of transport. "Rather than concentrating on year-by-year profit /loss balance sheets, all social costs and benefits incurred by each form of transport should be set out to guide future government investment," it says. "More than anything this would reveal the true cost and v.alue to the community of each mode of transport."

It is argued that a higher standard of service with better and more frequent trains and buses, improved interchange facilities and fares incentives, would offset the lossmaking peak-hour traffic. Loss mobility and pressure to use private transport intensively could both be minimized by a high standard of public transport.

The aims of Transport 2000 include the development and promotion of rail transport within an integrated transport system. The RHA, FTA, and AA were represented at the press conference and some platform speakers stressed that the new organization is neither pro-rail nor anti-road; any organization supporting the aims would be welcome to join.


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