YOUR NATIONWIDE PASSPORT TO WORRY FREE TRUCKING.
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Ve are stuck iith it
AN SUBJECTS stimulate so uch correspondence in the lily press as roads and road insport. Transport Secretary tvid Howell must have known at his White Paper on lorries, Dole and the environment 3uld produce the usual istolary ferment.
It is not only organisations Presenting opposing views at have conducted the war of 3rds. Individuals have felt alified to join in. The great 3jority are against the White per and the heavy lorry. Mr Howell may also have pected this. Most of his aasures are designed to solve reduce an acknowledged 3blem. We shall "get on top" it, he says. "There will be ver lorries, and they will be ieter, cleaner, safer and more icient. New bypasses will be ilt to keep them away from iere people live."
gone of these claims are :epted by the critics, inside or tside Parliament. They iintain that Armitage has tled nothing and insinuate it the White Paper has been tated by the road haulage iby. Admittedly the problem nains, but the solution, they ',must await several years of ther analysis.
'here must be sympathy for Howell. He cannot afford to as smug as his opponents i wait placidly until at some Jre date all the sums have worked out. The Armitage ort was an unquiet spirit; it would not rest easily in a pigeonhole. The Government had to do something and be seen to do it.
Putting one's head above the parapet invites missiles. There is little risk while a controversy is at the stage of formulating principles. The real trouble begins with the attempt to translate them into action.
Plans for London's roads will provide yet another example. The Greater London Council has published its roads policy consultation paper and asked for public comment. Most of the document is concerned with objectives and criteria. "The new GLC has adopted a fresh approach to transport," it says proudly, choosing a rather unfortunate example "the reduction of London Transport fares."
The fresh approach permits ambitious generalisations. "The overriding objective for transport planning in London," says the consultation paper, "is • to allow the convenient and efficient movement of people and goods needed to provide for its economic and social life while limiting the adverse effects of transport on the environment so encouraging employment and helping to make London a more attractive place in which to live."
Nobody can take exception to this somewhat breathless incantation. There will be little objection also to the main methods proposed for meeting the objective.
There must be better and cheaper public transport; stricter controls on commuter car traffic; careful traffic management; and improvements Lo the :oaa system. There will be different views, however, as the GLC
noints ••ut, orr p•-iate extent and the relative priorities. The document indicaies the economic, social and environmental considerations.
It gives sound advice. For example, road improvement schemes are to be preferred which serve heavy flows of buses and taxis and relieve congestion on "nearby busy bus routes." Scheme which worsen traffic congestion on roads well used by buses or cause diversion of bus routes are to be avoided.
It is when intentions are translated into practical schemes that the trouble will begin, as Mr Howell has found with his White Paper.
At least Mr Howell, as well as the GLC, has history on his side. The growth of population and its distribution have been made possible by the development of road transport. But the environmentalists are not alone in thinking, openly or otherwise, that the country would be a much better place if there were fewer people and they were arranged rather differently in the landscape. Whether or not *le changes needed to bring this about are desirable is beside the point. They are impossible. For good or evil, we are stuck with the heavy lorry and will have to do the best we can with it. The White Paper is the latest attempt and must be considered on that basis.
Most of its opponents have come to accept that there is no alternative to the juggernaut. Natural wastage or terminal nostalgia has weeded out the environmentalists who longed for a return to the pastoral age or the puffing Billy.
The survivors are more formidable. They have gone to the same sources as the Armitage Inquiry and the Department of Transport. They have studied the work that has been done on vibration, pollution, noise, the ratio between axle weight and road damage and the effect of heavy traffic on bridges. Whatever statistics are hurled at them, they have their own supply ready to throw back.
At times, they waste their ammunition. The claim in the White Paper that heavier vehicles will mean fewer vehicles has particularly infuriated them. Their research has shown that the heavy lorry population has not stopped growing since the last increase in maximum weights, from which they deduce that a further increase will have the same effect. Which, in the textbook phase, is absurd. , Operators sometimes wonder what the fuss is about. They wish from time to time to carry a load somewhat over the present limit. The new maximum could be 40 or 44 tonnes; even 36 or 38 tonnes would help.
The anathema heaped upon them for what seems a simple request is as out of proportion as the effect when Oliver Twist asked for more porridge. There is still a possibility that they will be as unsuccessful as he was.