'Investment is transport key'
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CURRENT transport policy should be replaced by a plan investment directed at a co-ordinated system involving methods of transport. for all We should be providing a transport system that will serve not dominate the environment, says a group of organisations in the West Midlands who have published a reply to the Government's Green Paper on Transport.
The reply comes from a group including the Railway Development Association, the Walsall Area Passenger Action Group and the West Midlands Action Committee for Public Transport.
They say that the idea of a co-ordinated transport policy should provide mobility for all, not just those with access to a car, and it should provide transport at the lowest cost to the nation in terms of fuel, land and the environment.
But the group point out that this is not the same as financial profitability.
They also want safe and "relevant" transport that will serve the needs of the community, and they want it in and beyond the next 10 years.
Among the methods of getting the end result the booklet — entitled Transport — A Policy For Co-ordination — says that the whole motorway building programme should be stopped so that a thorough reappraisal can be made of the whole plan. They want the programme replaced by one with investment in projects that lead to co-ordination between the different methods of transport.
Removal of transport subsidies for "the select few" is another of their targets but the most evident of them is the company car. But they also say all the nationalised transport operators should remove wasteful competition.
Buses also get higher subsidies from the group plus investment in bus lanes and by-passes where "real environmental gains would accrue."