HGVs beat Jams
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Operators seeing red that's official
• London's first congestionbusting 'red route was finally launched on Monday (7 January) — and it is already being condemned as a disaster by delivery drivers and traders.
The red route runs for about 6.5km from Archway Road to the Angel. Vehicles using it are only allowed to stop at specified times, and for limited periods, on marked loading bays.
Drivers are complaining of lack of tolerance from police and traffic wardens; having to move goods by hand over long distances to drop-off points; and of a lack of advanced information about the complex rules.
Failure to comply with the red route crackdown leads to severe penalties. Police and wardens are issuing a new type of red parking ticket carrying a £16 fine — and drivers who argue and refuse to move immediately risk having vehicles and loads impounded.
On the Monday morning one police officer told CM that he had already booked four delivery drivers. Sunblest Bakeries drivers Arthur Eldridge and John Parkin had their vehicle impounded at 0 8:0 Ohrs: "I pulled up on a single red line, got a tray of bread and a warden put a ticket on the van. I went into tell the customer there'd be no bread — I must have been 20 seconds — and when I turned round the police had jumped in and
driven off." That incident has cost Sunblest 280 to get the truck back from the Camden Town pound, and the 216 parking fine. "You're talking about our living," says Eldridge. "The traffic's still choc-a-bloc as usual."
Peter Davis, who drives for Shaws Carpets of Barnsley, says he is having to carry rolls of carpet up to 100m to make his deliveries. Davis, who has been delivering along the route for 10 years, calls the rules "terrible", particularly as the traffic flow is "no better".
The Department of Transport says the red route will be monitored by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory for the next 18 months. The pilot scheme, which will cost around 22m, could then be extended to cover 500km of London roads. Legislation to introduce stiff fines is going through Parliament now.
The DTp says it is "too early" to answer allegations that the red route signs and road markings are too small and hard to spot.
• Following CM's feature spotlighting the fact that HGVs reduce traffic congestion, (CM 11-17 October 1990) the Government has accepted that there would be 12,000 more trucks on the road if the maximum weight had not gone up to 38 tonnes n 1983.
Total goods transported by HGVs rose 3% in 1989 to 1.7bn tonnes, says the DTp. Top-weight artics carried 27% of that total, accounting for 48% of tonne/kilometres.
Hire-and-reward hauliers increased their share of the market over own-account firms from about 50% in the early 1980s to 60%.