Free transport is no answer, DoE told
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• Sharp criticism of the DoE's approach to the problem of persuading travellers to switch from private cars to public transport has come from Prof A. G. Wilson, professor of urban and regional geography at Leeds University.
"The DoE now have to face up, along with local authorities, to this decentralization /car ownership issue," he said in evidence to the Commons committee investigating urban transport problems. "Given present technologies, given present preferences. decentralization and increasing car usage is likely to go on." said Prof Wilson.
"In my view the DoE have not fully recognized this in the sense that their policy tends to be an exhortation to increase public transport in circumstances where it becomes increasingly difficult to develop public transport facilities." There was a major conflict here which the DoE had to resolve.
"The DoE," Prof Wilson went on, "has either to say that we as a country have to live with decentralization and car ownership because this is so good for 55 per cent of households, or. if we are going to have some turnabout, then let us have a turnabout and not simply have exhortations about public transport, but still allow the decentralization to go on."
Prof Wilson told the MPs there would have to he a high-level road-pricing policy to achieve any degree of switch to public transport. Similarly in his view a completely free public transport system would produce only a small transfer to public transport — something of the order of 10 per cent.